July | 2016 | life: acoustic & amplified

Archive for the month “July, 2016”

23 Jul 2016

what not to say…just bring french chocolates

“Only he who cries… is permitted to sing…” is what Bonhoeffer said.

Only those authentic enough to lament, are authentic enough to love.
When everything is stripped away and you have nothing left and in all your bare vulnerability, there is communion with God.

– Ann Voskamp

I am bare naked

Down to my bones

Even my comfortable skin is gone

I shiver as the cold blows through me

I have cried many tears

my song has been well watered

it blooms within me

true voice does not come without cost

Yet it comes

I choose

I let go

I choose

I lament

I chose

I grieve

I choose

I love

I choose

I commune

I choose

I learn

I choose

always choosing

new choosing in every moment

to continue to make the choices

which will bring the song

that fills the whole world

with hope, light and love

Thanks be

to the the friends who stay with me

in silence we weep

in joy we laugh

always and always

we sing

🎼

love breaks your heart for the sake of your heart…

If you have your health, you have everything

is something that’s said to cheer you up

when you come home early and find your lover

arched over a stranger in a scarlet thong.

Or it could be you lose your job at Happy Nails

because you can’t stop smudging the stars

on those ten teeny American flags.

I don’t begrudge you your extravagant vitality.

May it blossom like a cherry tree. May the petals

of your cardiovascular excellence

and the accordion polka of your lungs

sweeten the mornings of your loneliness.

But for the ill, for you with nerves that fire

like a rusted-out burner on an old barbecue,

with bones brittle as spun sugar,

with a migraine hammering like a blacksmith

in the flaming forge of your skull,

may you be spared from friends who say,

God doesn’t give you more than you can handle

and ask what gifts being sick has brought you.

May they just keep their mouths shut

and give you French chocolates and daffodils

and maybe a small, original Matisse,

say, Open Window, Collioure, so you can look out

at the boats floating on the dappled pink water.

🏝

French Chocolates by Ellen Bass

The Beloved says:

Be at peace;

I am the strongest thing in you.

Over your dark, formless waters I brood;

in your void I speak my Word.

You are my river and I am your flowing;

you are my water and I am your sea.

I am the spark from nerve to nerve;

the drumming of your heart.

I am your blood’s dark alchemy

creating life, this moment, life.

In the night I am your nest;

in the storm, your steadfast earth.

In the raging waters I am your breath;

in your death I am your life.

I am the First thing in you,

and I will be in you

when the rest of you is gone.

When your bones are shadows

and your sinews wind

a hundred years from now

I will still be in your place,

rejoicing.

Nothing is deeper than my desire for you;

nor stronger than your belonging in me.

I am your Realm, and your power, and your glory.

Be at peace.
__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

4 year anniversary of living faith following the cloud. Allowing God to direct every step I have taken…been an amazing, wonderful, difficult, miracle-strewn time. So grateful for every miracle minute.

Big changes seem to be coming. Walk with me. Pray for me. 🙏🏻 So grateful for you.

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, big, Change, Choice, courage, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, friendship, Gratitude, Grieving, healing, home, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, Peace, People, Relationships, risk, soul and spirit, transformation, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

22 Jul 2016

blank space

Today I find myself empty

Empty of words

Empty of color

Empty of strength

Empty of grief

Empty of empathy

Empty of ability

Empty of thoughts even

I’ve been here many times

I understand it better now

I will allow

I will rest

rest from thought

rest from guilt

rest from wanting

rest from expecting

rest from having to

rest from desire

I rest in my truth

rest in faith

rest in trust

rest in love

rest in what I believe

rest in what I have experienced

I will just be

stay open

stay present

stay here now

in wordless prayer –

Allowing the emptiness to be

Today I am empty

and it is

well with my soul.

💭

Writing about empty mind is not easy.

When I have got it, there are no words.

When the words come, it goes away.
Sitting in anger and fear,

Mind is full of the past and future.

Images of catastrophes big and small

Jostle for a seat at the brain.

Resentment, incredulity and disappointment

Slide their way into heart spaces

Pushing out loving-kindness.

Equanimity lies in pieces.
Some of us scrape up that slimy

Emotional stuff and put it in jars

To carry along with us,

And then we complain that

Our load is too heavy.

We need to put down that

Lumpy sack of ooze

And take a breath.
The sage said,

“I pack no provisions for my long journey—

Entering emptiness under the midnight moon.”

He did not pack his ego,

Or his remembrance of self.

He carried no big plans

Or regrets of the past.

Like a wise fool he may have

Even forgotten to leave.

While he sits still in darkness,

The moon travels the sky.

🗯

Empty Mind by Tom Barrett

I have a small vial of clay

that used to hold my father’s ashes.

They’re on a hillside in Montana now;

the vial is clean and empty,

ready for me.
I should keep it in my pocket,

hold it deep in the folds of my coat,

until I am folded into my little vial of clay.
It asks me, what is the difference

between you and clay?

The answer is water.

That, and love.
The little vial of clay says daily:

drink water while you can,

and love.

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

There is a community of the spirit.

Join it, and feel the delight

of walking in the noisy street

and being the noise.
Drink all your passion,

and be a disgrace.
Close both eyes

to see with the other eye.
Open your hands,

if you want to be held.
Sit down in this circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel

the shepherd’s love filling you.
At night, your beloved wanders.

Don’t accept consolations.
Close your mouth against food.

Taste the lover’s mouth in yours.
You moan, “She left me.” “He left me.”

Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying.

Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison

when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.

Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always

widening rings of being.

🎴

A Community of the Spirit by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.
– Rumi

Posted in Alone, attitude, awareness, be, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Choice, connection, courage, emotions, Freedom, Gratitude, Grieving, healing, Letting Go, Love, mystery, Patience, Peace, Poetry, quiet, risk, soul and spirit, strength, transformation, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

21 Jul 2016

bits and pieces

I gave myself permission to feel and experience all of my emotions. In order to do that, I had to stop being afraid to feel. In order to do that, I taught myself to believe that no matter what I felt or what happened when I felt it, I would be okay. – Iyanla Vanzant

I have walked through many lives,

some of them my own,

and I am not who I was,

though some principle of being

abides, from which I struggle

not to stray.

When I look behind,

as I am compelled to look

before I can gather strength

to proceed on my journey,

I see the milestones dwindling

toward the horizon

and the slow fires trailing

from the abandoned camp-sites,

over which scavenger angels

wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe

out of my true affections,

and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled

to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind

the manic dust of my friends,

those who fell along the way,

bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn,

exulting somewhat,

with my will intact to go

wherever I need to go,

and every stone on the road

precious to me.

In my darkest night,

when the moon was covered

and I roamed through wreckage,

a nimbus-clouded voice

directed me:

“Live in the layers,

not on the litter.”

Though I lack the art

to decipher it,

no doubt the next chapter

in my book of transformations

is already written.

📝

The Layers by Stanley Kunitz

there are people and places

which live inside me

I feel them

as I spin the kaleidoscope wheel

they come into focus

moments

smells

textures

visuals

each hold exquisite love

each hold delicately intense, brutal, suffering

each hold ruthless trust,

radical hope,

extreme faith,

continual healing.

each person,

each place a threshold

of practical practice,

of growth and becoming,

of wrestling with letting go,

of spiritual teaching towards love,

of defending my tenderness,

of stepping into ‘I am’,

of allowing myself,

of removing the toxic tarter buildup of my own soul,

of seeing glimpses of the unlimited, ever-unfolding mystery.

I’m so grateful for these people,

these places,

the ones I carry,

seen,

and those still before me,

as yet, unseen.

🕘

Just past dawn, the sun stands

with its heavy red head

in a black stanchion of trees,

waiting for someone to come

with his bucket

for the foamy white light,

and then a long day in the pasture.

I too spend my days grazing,

feasting on every green moment

till darkness calls,

and with the others

I walk away into the night,

swinging the little tin bell

of my name.

🔔

Birthday Poem by Ted Kooser

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, beloved, Change, Choice, commitment, confidence, connection, courage, determination, do, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, Freedom, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, Purpose | Leave a comment

20 Jul 2016

mirror mirror

Reborn as a court reporter

Inside a waking dream

Trapped between misspelling Subpoena and shouting guilty over and over

In a feudal land someone personified Justice as a woman, as a joke.
Oh the bliss that reason brings

Cold, calculated, harmony of all things

Where we agree, to agree, to disagree

That we can all agree on something.

“If only I got what I deserved”

Said no man ever.

The wrongs of another cannot be punished too harshly

Until you turn the eye inward,

To the mote and see yourself,

Know yourself,

Judge yourself,

Find mercy for yourself if you can.

Such a futile exercise for man

When you are done with yourself,

Ask if you can ever withhold forgiveness again?

🙀

Finding Mercy by Charles Cooper

We are all of us judged every day. We are judged by the face that looks back at us from the bathroom mirror. We are judged by the faces of the people we love and by the faces and lives of our children and by our dreams. We are judged by the faces of the people we do not love. Each day finds us at the junction of many roads, and we are judged as much by the roads we have not taken as by the roads we have.
The New Testament proclaims that at some unforeseeable time in the future, God will ring down the final curtain on history, and there will come a Day on which all our days and all the judgments upon us and all our judgments upon each other will themselves be judged. The judge will be Christ. In other words, the one who judges us most finally will be the one who loves us most fully.
Romantic love is blind to everything except what is lovable and lovely, but Christ’s love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ’s love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy. The worst sentence Love can pass is that we behold the suffering that Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal. The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one.

⚖

~Frederick Buechner originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words

Somewhere between what it feels like, to be at

one with the sea, and to understand the sea as

mere context for the boat whose engine refuses

finally to turn over: yeah, I know the place—

stumbled into it myself, once; twice, almost. All

around and in between the two trees that

grow there, tree of compassion and—

much taller— tree of pity, its bark

more bronze, the snow  settled as if an openness of any kind meant, as well,

a woundedness that, by filling it, the snow

might heal…You know what I think? I think if we’re

lost, you should know exactly where, by now; I’ve

watched you stare long and hard enough at the map

already…I’m beginning to think I may never

not be undecided, about all sorts of things: whether

snow really does resemble the broken laughter

of the long-abandoned when what left comes back

big-time; whether gratitude’s just a haunted

space like any other. This place sounds daily

more like a theater of war, each time I listen to it—

loss, surprise, victory, being only three of the countless

fates, if you want to call them that, that we don’t

so much live with, it seems, as live for now among. If as

close as we’re ever likely to get, you and I, is this—this close—

⛵️

Carl Phillips.

Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 19, 2016, by the Academy of American Poets

I am not your enemy.

I am for you, not against.

I am not like your anger,

I am not your fear.

I am your joy, your peace.

I am your breathing, your heartbeat,

your blood, your Being.

I am the fullness of you,

unfolding as you let me.

I have only blessing for you,

like a mother for her newborn.

I am your perfection, longing for you.

My judgment is not harsh, but pure mercy,

my seeing your brilliance folded in the bud,

my knowledge of your beauty waiting in you.

I do not judge your doubts

but give you strength to tear them open

and find in them the mirror of your grace.

I know your childish fears,

your helpless lashing out,

I have seen the rage seeping into you.

My wrath burns not against you but that lie.

I will hold you until you quiet in my arms.

You are angry because you are afraid

that I am not here for you

but I am here

for you.

Be still, and let me hold you.
__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Choice, determination, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, focus, grace, Gratitude, Judging, Letting Go, Life, Love, Peace, People, perceptions, Poetry, Prayer | Leave a comment

19 Jul 2016

both sides now

in giving we heal ourselves

in receiving we heal others

💞

– unknown

do you know

the importance of

both sides of the gift?

We have become an addictive, unbalanced, people, full of extremes. There are givers. There are takers. We see there are two categories: victims or assholes and we choose one side or the other. Completely destructive on both sides.

We have taken sides on an issue which needs us to be both in order to be truly successful in the most important areas of our lives. Being balanced on both sides leads us to create a new category for ourselves, our relationships and the world.

Think about yourself. How good are you at:

giving?

receiving?

acknowledging your need of another/others?

allowing?

vulnerability?

trust?

accepting the gift without competitive thoughts of payback?

accepting compliments?

gratitude to the other?

giving/receiving from a balanced place?

come on let your guard down.

give a little. take a little.

💞

Nahko

Posted in attitude, awareness, balance, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Choice, connection, find art at pinterest, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, People | Leave a comment

18 Jul 2016

threads that won’t break

On Dec 3, 2014 (2 year anniversary of my living death in the dark night of the soul, I got a post titled Love never Dies from Jen Lemen at Hopeful World http://hopefulworld.org

Here’s a taste of what it said:
I am struck also as I write to you from this wintery desk, that building our capacity for stillness helps so much when the wild comes to our restless souls. Without that practice of being quiet, it’s easy to be scared when our wild, instinctual thoughts pop up. It’s easy to think that they are bad somehow or in need of corralling. But the practice of quiet and stillness helps us recognize our instinctual knowing for what it is: a call to our most true nature. A call to a kind of expression that is more vibrant, more textured, more passionate, more alive–even if it’s a little bit messy. Even if it kicks up a little bit of shame that we are this human, this raw.
So I invite you today to sit with me for three magic minutes. I’ll be right here with you, my own mind a rollercoaster of crazy, of frantic, of nonsensical worrisome things. I’ll sit with you and notice everything in my own soul, while you notice everything in yours and together we will begin to knit together an understanding of what’s underneath that noise: a gorgeous, exquisite tapestry of human longing designed to carry us to an awake magnificent place.
Will you join me?

Setting the timer now.

Let me know how it is on the other side.
With so much love,

Jen
It’s now 3.5 years later and Jen Lemen is still bringing all that, and more to me, to you, to the shaky, hoping world, to the edges of eternity…love never dies.
Today, in this crazy, brutal brutal place, where we ask…
how can these two people be our Presidential choices?
how can people keep killing other people?
how can I deal with the grief and the fear of this?
how can I help?
what is the solution?
what is my part?
Jen Lemen is doing her part. She’s offering Soul Snacks –
http://www.thewayofdevotion.org/soul-snacks
Amazing gifts to all of of struggling, hungry, hurting, angry, frustrated pilgrims and poets.
Right now she has open enrollment and I have just this…
Don’t wait! http://www.thewayofdevotion.org/soul-snacks
Gobble this up, savor it a bite at a time, eat them from start to finish, or nibble from the middle to each edge of crust. Savory, delectable soul-spices involving all your most subtle senses.
http://www.thewayofdevotion.org/soul-snacks

💞

Keep wrestling, burn, scream, let go, melt, let your heart keep breaking for the sake of your heart, keep saying the names of your people, fiercely defend your tenderness, think, grieve, repair, renew, continue to do what’s in your heart to do…each thread matters…each color makes the world more beautiful…
in the end, only love is eternal, only love remains…
http://www.thewayofdevotion.org/soul-snacks

🔥

We are God’s thread

weaving through the tapestry,

the masterpiece is slowly

created.

Potential for beauty, we can’t know,

unfolding,

becoming,

revealing glory

so bright

it makes the sun squint

and reach for sunglasses.

Brilliance so far beyond ourselves

we go shining into the gray

as we open to the new jewels appearing,

sparkling in the moonlight.

As we step into the needle’s eye

the angels catch their breath,

cheering our blazing garments,

dazzled by the vision

God is revealing through the creation.

As we surrender to the greatest mystery,

the beauty we inhabit

becomes us,

walking in humble clay

eyes out shining the stars

set in the heavens.

Until we totally disappear and all that’s left

is holiness

so pure

all we can do

bow in wonder

at ourselves

and give thanks

as the silk thread

becomes liquid gold and silver

pure and simple

glory

as we realize our place in the whole.

We are the temple of our creator.

The home of God.

😎

As deftly and finally as one pulls out a thread

someone is weaving them, gracefully tying them,

minute and irreversible.
In the towering sky, even under the fortress,

root tendrils muscle in and bind ligaments

through an abyss we had been told was absolute.
No enormity of terror

can keep up

with the steady, unseen healing.
Before the assault, the horrible wound,

gaping and exposed,

the stitching has already begun.
Even as we sigh in our own world,

moving on, separate,

we are being sewn in.
In the earthquake, the collapsing mountains,

not a bit of rubble falls

on the path from the temple.
If you could hold your immortal soul

in your hands, you would hardly recognize it

from one moment to the next.
Your grave is already empty.
__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

photo sources found at pinterest.com

Posted in action, Adventure, Alone, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, community, compassion, confidence, connection, courage, Dancing, dark, Death, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, Glory, Gratitude, Grieving, healing, home, Hope, Imagine, inspiration, laugh, Letting Go, Life, light, Love, Miracles, music, mystery, Passion, Patience, Peace, People, perceptions, Poetry, power, Prayer, Purpose, quiet | Leave a comment

17 Jul 2016

breaking the mold…feelin’ dangerously cheesy

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. – Chesterton

In the pantry the dear dense cheeses, Cheddars and harsh

Lancashires; Gorgonzola with its magnanimous manner;

the clipped speech of Roquefort; and a head of Stilton

that speaks in a sensuous riddling tongue like Druids.

O cheeses of gravity, cheeses of wistfulness, cheeses

that weep continually because they know they will die.

O cheeses of victory, cheeses wise in defeat, cheeses

fat as a cushion, lolling in bed until noon.

Liederkranz ebullient, jumping like a small dog, noisy;

Pont l’Évêque intellectual, and quite well informed; Emmentaler

decent and loyal, a little deaf in the right ear;

and Brie the revealing experience, instantaneous and profound.

O cheeses that dance in the moonlight, cheeses

that mingle with sausages, cheeses of Stonehenge.

O cheeses that are shy, that linger in the doorway,

eyes looking down, cheeses spectacular as fireworks.

Reblochon openly sexual; Caerphilly like pine trees, small

at the timberline; Port du Salut in love;

Caprice des Dieux eloquent, tactful, like a thousand-year-old hostess;

and Dolcelatte, always generous to a fault.

O village of cheeses, I make you this poem of cheeses,

O family of cheeses, living together in pantries,

O cheeses that keep to your own nature, like a lucky couple,

this solitude, this energy, these bodies slowly dying.
🧀

O Cheese by Donald Hall

why is it so hard to see you get in that line?

the one where you wait to fly away…

my heart is so full of you.

I’m so very grateful for you,

for these days,

full and joyful.

Over way too fast.

There’s so much more to do,

too share,

talk about,

explore.

You,

so handsome,

funny,

brave,

smart

and practical.

Always thinking,

finding yourself,

ready for more,

standing so tall

with your quick smile,

and quick frown.

I think about you little,

eating cheese off your bed –

you were always a wild animal,

always manufacturing a tail from some found source.

You were always so much more than that –

you were always art,

always real life,

always finding God in the clouds,

always quick to find the silly,

my beautiful son.

I laugh through my tears

at the sheer gift of you.

I love you pure,

to the deepest depths of myself.

I can’t possibly comprehend it,

but I know, somehow,

God loves you even more than I do.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Let go…

Fly free, be well, live full, and come back soon –

my only prayers

👦🏼

AL/Mom

When the news came in over the phone

that you did not have cancer, as they first thought.

I was in the kitchen trying to follow a recipe,

glancing from cookbook to stove,

shifting my glasses from my nose to my forehead and back,

a recipe, as it turned out, for ratatouille,

a complicated vegetable dish

which you or any other dog would turn up your nose at.

If you had been here, I imagine

you would have been curled up by the door

sleeping with your head resting on your tail.

And after I learned that you were not sick,

everything took on a different look

and appeared to be better than it usually is.

For example (and that’s the first and last time

I will ever use those words in a poem),

I decided I should grate some cheese,

not even knowing if it was right for ratatouille,

and the sight of the cheese grater

with its red handle lying in the drawer

with all the other utensils made me marvel

at how this thing was so perfectly able and ready

to grate cheese just as you with your long smile

and your brown and white coat

are perfectly designed to be the dog you perfectly are.
🧀

Good News by Billy Collins

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

Posted in attitude, awareness, emotions, find art at pinterest, fun, Gratitude, Letting Go, Love, Poetry, Quotes | Leave a comment

17 Jul 2016

the hum of Sabbath and poems

There will be the clutter and clatter of pans,

the rumble and jumble of traffic and trains,

the brambles of papers and lists and calls,

the beaten paths, the errands, the chores.

You don’t have to rattle and run with them.

You can do one thing at a time.

You can stop  and sit at the feet of the moment,

pay reverent attention to whatever it is,

and listen to the silence beneath the hum,

and simply be

in the the presence of the presence.

In all your doing that you surely must do,

you still can just be.

And your being

will become

what you do.

In the stillness within the action

sits the Beloved

who is not distracted with many things,

but only wants to sit awhile

with you.

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

I was reading…
yes, that was it…
reading…

poetry…
then I was awake…
and it was late afternoon…
and I felt heavy,
but so grateful,
to be able to finally get that rest,
to hear that sweet sound of rain,
to feel the soft of the squishy pillows,
to smell the fresh cut flowers by my bed,
to experience the healing power
of sleep.
to gain the clarity.
to allow the next question.
to prepare for the hard next steps.
to feel ready.
sleep is a magic source of strength.
a necessary part of living well.
But, really, I was just reading poems…

😴💤💤

Poetry is the art of the spoken word, a tapestry of emotion sparked by a single phrase, that impacts the deepest resonances of a heart….that holds it’s meaning through history.

💞

By AllPoetry fan, Taylor S.

💞

Do you agree?

How does poetry impact you?

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

Posted in art, attitude, awareness, create, find art at pinterest, healing, inspiration, Letting Go, Peace, Poetry, power, Prayer, quiet, soul and spirit, Trust, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

16 Jul 2016

play me

Lying here quietly beside you,

My cheek against your firm, quiet thighs,

The calm music of Boccherini

Washing over us in the quiet,

As the sun leaves the housetops and goes

Out over the Pacific, quiet—

So quiet the sun moves beyond us,

So quiet as the sun always goes,

So quiet, our bodies, worn with the

Times and penances of love, our

Brains curled, quiet in their shells, dormant,

Our hearts slow, quiet, reliable

In their interlocked rhythms, the pulse

In your thigh caressing my cheek.

Quiet.

🎹

Quietly by Kenneth Rexrothg

🍅
when life gets hard

and love is dry

when hearts get hurt

and eyes just cry

there’s just one thing that’s left to try

pour some music on it

when times are tough

when money’s tight

you try to make it

with all your might

just one thing will make things right

pour some music on it

pour some music all around

on your head

on the ground

That’s the way that joy is found

just pour some music on it

when the night

is dark and grim

the day is gray

and hope is dim

Just wait for light, just fake a grin

and pour some music on it

pour some music all around

let it out

let it pound

Just pump it up, dance to that sound

just pour some music on it

are you tired, are you fat,

are you wearing thin?

just pour some music on it

are you happy, are you sad, are you wearing skin?

just pour some music in it

are you red, are you white, are you feeling blue?

just pour some music on it

are you old, are you young, are you feeling new

just pour some music on it

🎼

Posted in Adventure, art, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, courage, Faith, find art at pinterest, healing, inspiration, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, music, mystery, Prayer | Leave a comment

15 Jul 2016

how far will you go?

Better to live your life open rather than exist on borrowed time, waiting for the great unmasking.

– Kate Jacobs

love is the flame
all people yearn for the flame

some people never discover there actually is a flame

some people ignore the flame

some people avoid the flame

some people examine the flame

some people research the flame

some people control the flame

some people fear the flame

some people are fooled by fake flame

some people admire the flame

some people use the flame

some people walk on the flame

some people dance with the flame

some people dance in the flame

some people become the flame

some people are consumed by the flame
your choice…

how will you burn?

🔥

Those who are drawn to the root of love are mystics. Mystics are not satisfied with the surface patterns of love, with the emotional tangles and insecurities of human loving. They seek a purer wine, a more potent passion. They need the essence of love, its divine substance.

~ Irina Tweedie

On the day I died

water ran through pipes,

footsteps identified people in the house and

the dogs nails clicked quickly on the wood floors above my head,

insisting it was time to go out for relief.

I still needed coffee,

light with cream,

2 sugars.

The sun was bright

and I remember the sky was that deep blue,

romantically named, azurite.

There was cockscomb,

half alive in pots near the wooden footbridge I walked over.

I used to love them when I was alive.

I touched their red, velvety, blooms seeking to feel something.

I mistook fluttering angel wings for birds,

battles fought,

just beyond where I lay

on the words of Wendell Berry –

the only thread

keeping me tethered to this world.

I sat on benches beside ghosts

of those who had gone before me.

I could still only feel them beside me,

I was in the world between worlds.

There was darkness, a fire swamp, screaming, clashes of swords,

I could not save myself.

God was everywhere.

I found myself in a boat,

where I stayed for 2 years, until,

in recent weeks,

the call came to step out,

to start walking on water.

Late in the day,

I stood in the bathroom,

accepting the most insulting job offer I have ever received,

then sat on a stool,

trying to act as if I was alive,

pretending to look for puzzle pieces,

slightly aware of the colors and shapes,

singing echoes of songs I used to love,

with my beautiful Robin,

who seemed very much alive.

🔥

In Memoriam of my death, consumed by the flame,

December 3, 2012 –

may I be remembered as

Daniel J O’Connell having the:

Spirit of a warrior

Soul of a poet

Irradiat your mind with the light from within, allow your existence to move along within the unbroken continuity of nature. The ideal of authenticity lies deep in the heart of one’s union to the world not the possession of it. The grandeur of unity holds a definitive place in the infinite. When you calibrate your spirit with that of the world you are left open to respond to your life harmoniously with the universe. Unmask your illusions from those artificial ideas you have build your lives upon with walls and boundaries solidifying your thoughts about a tragic disassociation to nature. It’s up to you to be open now or wait for the great unmasking…the choice is yours but unmasking now allows you to reconcile your existence while you still have the chance to live it.

– Lissette T. Hesmadt

We have known and have believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who remain in love remain in God and God remains in them. 1 John ‪4:16‬

No matter the results and outcomes,
the thousand possibilities,

you are here now.
Why even try to trace

what the beggar will do with your money?

Let your giving be the whole horizon.
Be lovingly present

and wars and stars and grief and cats alike

will be unable to trouble you.
At the center of the world and in each breath

this is the holy temple, the birthing moment:

giving and receiving love. That is all.
This is the sacred point,

the love in you

meeting the love in the world.
However broken or weary you are,

bring yourself here, in love,

now.
__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

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

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Burnign Bridges, Change, Choice, courage, dark, Death, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Glory, Gospel, grace, Gratitude, Growth, Habits, healing, home, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, Passion, Poetry, power, Purpose | Leave a comment

life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the month “July, 2016”

what not to say…just bring french chocolates

blank space

bits and pieces

mirror mirror

both sides now

threads that won’t break

breaking the mold…feelin’ dangerously cheesy

the hum of Sabbath and poems

play me

how far will you go?

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Meta

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the month “July, 2016”

Post Navigation

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Meta