life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the month “June, 2016”

30 Jun 2016

we are forces of nature    









photo sources found at http://www.pinterest.com


“Even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me” (Psalm 139:10).

 

You look for Me. But you don’t need to look far.
Oh, trust Me. Trust Me: when I say I am with you, nothing can separate you from my love. This is true.
Come deeper.
Drink of these roots that do more than sustain. Yes, they hold you up. Yes, they let you reach high, to a new place, with Me. Yes, they give you courage, knowing you are held, knowing you will not topple. The stream that nourishes you will never run dry.
You do not do the planting in the best soil. That is for Me to do. You do not decide the weather—whether the sun will shine or rain will fall. You do not know when storms will bend your branches, the wind whipping off your leaves. You do not know when a branch will need to be cut, a root adjusted, fertilizer poured in and mixed with rich soil.
I am the one who cares for you, my love. I am the one who bends low, my hand upon you, my breath the sweet aroma of your soul.
Come, child. I take your concerns. I’ve got you.
I’ve got you.
I see you and care for you. You are growing.
You are becoming more and more yourself.
Oh, how I love to tend to you and be with you! You are the one for whom I bend low and you see Me.
I am so close.

💞

Loop

http://www.gatherministries.com/loop



photos found on Facebook/jeff brown

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Choice, connection, courage, determination, Faith, find art at pinterest, focus, force, Glory, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, Passion, power | Leave a comment
29 Jun 2016

nothing is more powerful than beauty in a wicked world…     – Amos Lee    


I asked the earth, I asked the sea and the deeps, among the living animals, and things that creep. I asked the winds that blow, I asked the heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars, and to all things that stand at the doors of my flesh…My question was the gaze I turned to them. Their answer was their beauty. 

   – St Augustine


Lovers find secret places inside this violent world
Where they make transactions with beauty. – Rumi

Close your eyes. 
Fall in love. 
Stay there. 
                       – Rumi

We live, shields up,
prepared for battle,
expecting war. 
We harden ourselves, 
with the best of intentions. 
Our best defense is protective prevarication. 
Our best offense is distracting laughter. 
Violence becomes a way of life. 
Tenderness becomes a thing we try to remove from our children 
as early as possible. 
We think we know this – 
if we can control the carnage, 
if we don’t allow our weaknesses to drag behind us
like toilet paper stuck to our shoe, 
No vulnerabilities allowed to peak out like saggy undergarments. 
No imperfections leaking out of our ears or fingertips,
we’ll win.  
We got this. 
We set life up without possibility of change,
without allowing any new circumstances to come to us…

then love comes 
with it’s un-understandable mystery 
and finds us not ready. 
Who could ever be ready for this?
then we seek places,
benches, beaches, back seats…
places to share with the other. 
unexpected moments of joy and connection 
find us at newly found secret spots
where shields are lowered,
vulnerability given,  
tenderness ruthlessly
invades the moment
and beauty is transacted. 
soul’s mingle,
hands touch. 
Life gets messy and wet. 
Car windows steam up on drizzly mornings
as love comes peeking through
working to melt stony hearts,
to return us to joyful living 
these are the moments life was made for,
two souls torn from the same clay,
loving each other for a million years and more,
suddenly find each other within the same moment,
and it takes our breath away. 

or 

we build an igloo 

and refuse the gift. 

It’s always our choice. 

❤️💔

AL





photo sources found at http://www.pinterest.com

Posted in Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, connection, courage, Dancing, find art at pinterest, fragile, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, Passion, People, Reality | Leave a comment
28 Jun 2016

omnia vincit amor* :  love conquers all  


Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,

With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,

When first on this delightful land he spreads

His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit and flower,

Glistening with dew; fragrant the fertile earth

After soft showers, and sweet the coming on

of grateful Evening mild; the silent Night,

With this her solumn bird and hisfair Moon,

And these the gems of Heaven, their starry train;

But neither breath of morn nor rising sun

On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower

Glistening with dew, nor fragrance after shower,

Nor grateful Evening mild, nor silent Night,

With this her solumn bird, nor walk by Moon,

Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet

💔
John Milton


I’m a world away

In a thousand ways

Tossing and turning

Heat is burning

I stand and sway to the tunes I love

As the night sky fills my heart with love
And we’re looking at the same moon

Bella Luna

And she’s looking back you see

And we’re reaching for the same star

Bella Luna

In the silence can you feel me?
You’re a lifetime away

Where you need to be

Laughing and worrying

Life is swirling

I wonder, do you ever think of me?

As the lights go on in the evening sky
And we’re looking at the same moon

Bella Luna

And she’s looking back you see

And we’re singing the same songs

Bella Luna

In the wind can you hear me?
And I can’t think of you

Can you think of me?

You are there 

I am here

How it has to be
And we’re looking at the same moon,

Bella Luna

And she’s looking back you see

And we’re dancing to the moonglow

Bella Luna

In her eyes can you see me?

🌝

AL


photo sources found at http://www.pinterest.com

Posted in Alone, attitude, awareness, beauty, beloved, connection, find art at pinterest, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, Passion, Reality | Leave a comment
27 Jun 2016

all roads  


it’s not a dead end if it takes you someplace you needed to go

           – unconditional 

There are beautiful wild forces within us.

 Let them turn the mills inside

 and fill

 sacks

 that feed even heaven.

💞

     – St. Frances of Assisi

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, beloved, Choice, connection, courage, find art at pinterest, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, Passion | Leave a comment
26 Jun 2016

check in


thank you, dear heart,

for being so brave,

for the courage to stay open,

for giving, and receiving, love,

for taking me into battles

and winning wars with your ferocious strength

for valiantly defending your fragile tenderness 

for loving your own terrible beauty 

for revealing your deepest darkness to the light of discovery

and laying open your wounds to the healing air

for being willing to walk into heartbreak again and again,

knowing what you do. 

For, even when you are shaking afraid,

you always shout,

‘YAY!’

‘Yes’

‘Let’s dance’ 

and

‘I gotta have more cowbell…’

Thank you for your life giving work

your refusal to quit

your belief in the way I live

I adore you

I honor you

I cherish and bless

your amazing work 

in my chest,

in my world,

in my relationships,

and in my wanderings. 

I give you the gift of the best me,

in every moment we have together,

the brightest shining light, 

I can be

we do good work, girl,

you got the beat,

Oh, skip it, Let’s roll!
Yours forever true, 

❤️

AL





Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, commitment, compassion, connection, courage, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, grace, Gratitude, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, soul and spirit, transformation, Trust, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
25 Jun 2016

Where you belong should always be worthy of your dignity.       – John O’Donohue


                         everything here
                                              

 seems to need us
           

                   -Rainer Maria Rilke

😶🙃🙂

I can hardly imagine it

as I walk to the lighthouse, 

feeling the ancient

prayer of my arms swinging

in counterpoint to my feet.

Here I am, suspended

between the sidewalk and twilight,

the sky dimming so fast it seems alive.

What if you felt the invisible

tug between you and everything?

A boy on a bicycle rides by,

his white shirt open, flaring

behind him like wings.

It’s a hard time to be human.

 We know too much

and too little. 

Does the breeze need us?

The cliffs? 

The gulls?

If you’ve managed to do one good thing,

the ocean doesn’t care.

But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth,

the earth, ever so slightly, fell

toward the apple.

🍎

The World Has Need of You by Ellen Bass


4:08 pm Seattle

june 24, 2016

the beauty of comversations

so amazing

such glory in these connections

from all over the world –

we all have need of each other. 

Front porches can be found anywhere. 

We share lunch tables

and stories, oh so exciting. 

The four friends head to the gate,

the two locals call a friendly greeting as they return to leave for home, 

they remember my name – 

it rings out in the busy airport!

Wave and smiling – I live here!

I sit and rejoice.

Write it. 🙂

   I am enriched

       by this going 

           by this obedience

                  by this calling

I have received such confirmation of my work. 

So energized,

             so blessed,

                      so excited, 

                so ready. 

I am smiling as the guy above my table says, 

So we must be in the allergy section….

(we talk throat clearing and 

the fact that I have eaten gluten,

 for a few)

Hi, I’m Gary…I’m Amy….

my next divine appointment 

has just arrived…

we cross paths 2 or3 times,

then just sit 

     talk, 

           share, 

                connect,

                  sleep

         (well, sorta…in a plane seat??????….winging to Phily)

we leave each other with a warm hug,

after an all night flight…

I am doing my work…

and it is good 

✈️

AL


Today I wish you grand adventures, shared laughter and please, for goodness sakes, park with WILD ABANDON!! ❤️ xo

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blog, Burnign Bridges, Change, Choice, connection, courage, determination, find art at pinterest, Happiness, healing, inspiration, Letting Go, light, Love, Passion, Reality | Leave a comment
24 Jun 2016

she talks to trees 


each tree grows in two directions at once, into the darkness and out to the light with as many branches and roots as it needs to embody its wild desires. 

🌳

    –  John O’Donohue


Sky, embrace storm.

Let there be a stillness

around your whirlwind.
Breathe in chaos, breathe out

impossible turquoise blossoms

of transparency.
Ignite the cinders of yesterday

and burn them completely

under the andirons

of your sternum.
With a gentle sigh release

your eternal spark,

an infinitesimal diamond

dense as the wisdom congealed
on a corpse’s brow.

Intelligence without words.

Understanding without thoughts.
Today’s forecast:

sunny with rain,

and no distinction

between sorrow and joy.
Now rest in a darker silence

where opposites dance

like long-estranged lovers
renewing their marriage vows

against the advice of all

their relatives.

____
Fred LaMotte


Sometimes I just lean
against the nearest tree trunk
lay my hands on the rough bark 
stand heart to heart with the ones who give me clean air
in return for the exhaled breath they need from me
I rejoice in how we keep each other alive
I brush my cheek against its rough chest
and we dance for a while to the music 
of the wind through the leaves
🌳
AL

Posted in Adventure, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Choice, connection, courage, find art at pinterest, People, perceptions, Reality | Leave a comment
23 Jun 2016

a little breaking to know you’re alive


HEARTBREAK is unpreventable; the natural outcome of caring for people and things over which we have no control, of holding in our affections those who inevitably move beyond our line of sight.
Heartbreak begins the moment we are asked to let go but cannot, in other words, it colors and inhabits and magnifies each and every day; heartbreak is not a visitation, but a path that human beings follow through even the most average life. Heartbreak is an indication of our sincerity: in a love relationship, in a life’s work, in trying to learn a musical instrument, in the attempt to shape a better more generous self. Heartbreak is the beautifully helpless side of love and affection and is just as much an essence and emblem of care as the spiritual athlete’s quick but abstract ability to let go. Heartbreak has its own way of inhabiting time and its own beautiful and trying patience in coming and going.
Heartbreak is how we mature; yet we use the word heartbreak as if it only occurs when things have gone wrong: an unrequited love, a shattered dream, a child lost before their time. Heartbreak, we hope, is something we hope we can avoid; something to guard against, a chasm to be carefully looked for and then walked around; the hope is to find a way to place our feet where the elemental forces of life will keep us in the manner to which we want to be accustomed and which will keep us from the losses that all other human beings have experienced without exception since the beginning of conscious time. But heartbreak may be the very essence of being human, of being on the journey from here to there, and of coming to care deeply for what we find along the way.
…If heartbreak is inevitable and inescapable, it might be asking us to look for it and make friends with it, to see it as our constant and instructive companion, and even perhaps, in the depth of its impact as well as in its hindsight, to see it as its own reward. Heartbreak asks us not to look for an alternative path, because there is no alternative path. It is a deeper introduction to what we love and have loved, an inescapable and often beautiful question, something or someone who has been with us all along, asking us to be ready for the last letting go.

💔

‘HEARTBREAK’ From 

CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment 

and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.

© 2015 David Whyte



If I wrote a poem today
it would be the saddest one you would ever read
It would break your heart into small pieces
and scatter them all over the world
It would cause you to cry new oceans into existence,
and all the stars would burn out from the pain of its essence 
Global chaos would ensue 
the world, as we know it, end
Therefore, I will not write a poem today
I will wait for another day 
when love has found me again
and my heart is a riot of joy 
rather than sadness
Then I’ll write a poem so brilliant
so brimming with happiness
it will create a new heaven
and a new earth 
where we will dance forever 

under skies forever blue
👫
AL

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Choice, connection, find art at pinterest, Letting Go, Life, Love, risk, soul and spirit, strength, transformation, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
22 Jun 2016

feeling it down to the marrow 


Life itself is the great sacrament through which we are wounded and healed. If we live everything, life will be faithful to us. 

❤️

  – John O’Donohue


this birth of awaiting changes
this for that
tit for tat
tuxedo memories
pinstripe debonair
glamour hangs
like confetti in the air
life goes 
round and round
flinging dreams
synthetic roads
leading nowhere 
screams and laugher 
hardest when not fair
up one side now
down the other there
we hang on
we stomp our feet 
and swear
this ain’t right
this we cannot bear
life goes forward
ever on and on
wanting only
to change our point of view
we are loved
no matter what we lose
love will win
love always life’s sweet muse
sight or blind
the vision ours to choose
❤️
AL

Men must endure / Their going hence even as their coming hither; / Ripeness is all. 

    – William Shakespeare / King Lear 

Posted in action, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, connection, find art at pinterest, Growth, Habits, Happiness, inspiration, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, risk, soul and spirit, strength, transformation, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
21 Jun 2016

st..st…stuck…


Stuck in the blues.  
I get stuck on silly things

Like rainy days

when my phone rings

I get stuck in parking spaces

And in hugs of biblical proportion

I get stuck in desperation of 

empty wallets

And gas tanks

And stomachs

And stalkers

And water bills

And Freddies

Some days i just get stuck in bed

Covers all up o’er my head

‘I cant get up’, I tell my clock,

‘Cause I am stuck, 

So just shut up’

I get stuck when my pillow gets hot

Or when it’s cold and I cry 

And ice sickles hang from my eyelashes  

I get stuck on random things

Like boots and shoes

And onion rings

When socks don’t match

Or there’s no cream

for my coffee

or my pie 

I get stuck

when stupid songs stick in my head 

The ones I just don’t want to sing

I get stuck when I think about what I want

Instead of what I have

I get stuck in a few more minutes…

Or another year goes by

Reminding me

I might get stuck dancing…

At your wedding to someone else,

Or on your grave,

Or in a dream about Madonna, and bananas and a cat who likes to pray

I get stuck eating meatball subs

And pumpkin muffins with extravagant amounts of butter

at times I get stuck in the blues

I know it’s sad

Yet mighty true

the hardest times to get unstuck

Are when my mind gets stuck on you

Stuck on you

Stuck on you

Yes I get stuck

Stuck…

St…st..st…stuck on you

☺️

AL 


Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love | Leave a comment

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