Signs and stars in the heavens
hearts found along every highway
in every little town along the pilgrims pathway
it’s Christmas Eve and we are feeling the birth
of all these unlimited possibilities happening
starting here and now
as the sunlight fades into in glorious color
and we feel our fine and mellow happy hearts
dream again of all our Christmas wishes
Sometimes the old myth is right,
the light has gone out of the world,
you can see plainly in your heart
and its hungry darkness, the aimless grief,
a heavy echo of something missing, or someone,
not lighting, like a mood or a utility,
but a source, life itself, and its warmth.
Something like the friendship of the earth.
Not exactly breath, but essential.
Emperors are lost. Roads vanish.
You need to plead. Someone needs to fetch it.
Someone needs to assail the fearful thief
who has stolen the light and hidden it,
buried it in the darkest place where no one
can go, no one can find it, no one can return.
Someone innocent and honest, brave enough
to be true and risk everything to set off
with nothing but a fish hook and a loaf of bread
to find the light for us who hunger for it,
and for the trees who wait in silence.
On the longest night when even the angels
can stand it no longer, God sends a child,
tender and willing, (and a mother who offers him
to this dark world), a child with nothing but love
saying, “I will go into your darkest places for you
and there, there, I will draw out the light.”
The harsh wind clamping down,
the threat already issued, soldiers on the move,
the child comes into the night, facing the darkness.
His mother sings, and he begins his journey,
and already he has a bit of light in his hands,
and already the night begins to turn
and the stars dance and the angels sing
and your heart begins to rise
like the long-lost morning sun.
__________
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
And why are you anxious about clothing?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
~Matthew 6:26-30
Clinging to light is not the Way.
Clinging to darkness is not the Way.
Winter is not an absence.
Spring is not a destination.
Lose your Way
in the bardo between seasons
and wake up wherever you are.
Fred LaMotte
I am not running anymore; I have run all my life; now I am determined to stop and really live my life.
~Thich Nhat Hanh
Of roadtrips and birthdays
Days before the new year starts
We are doing so much brave and new!
We are opening
beating
stepping in
reaching out
shouting louder
whispering softly
sharing
caring
giving
taking
letting go
feeling fullness
washing dishes
pouring wine
clearing the old
embracing the new
sweeping the threshold
then stepping over it
life is happening now
as we breathe
as we bathe
as we lose
as we find
as we smile
as we cry
as we live
as we die
💃
Amy Lloyd
Happy Birthday to my lovely fellow-girl adventurer in the great path of life, Robin O’Neal
Carrying heavy things
into the past
just so I can
lay them down on a convenient corner
and so continue on around the bend
without the load I’ve borne beforehand
the next light years ahead
will be easy like Sunday morning
Songs and friends of yesterday
returning to play new verses
versions of ourselves yet to be
coming to the forefront
stages set with beauty
bells ringing all around the glorious trees and rooftops
what’s the next best step?
when’s the celebration?
pop the cork, baby
Let’s start today
look at what you’ve accomplished
in such a short span of life
count the days a complete success
there is no such thing as failure, anyway
look me in the eye and give me your best defense
then, look forward into the shining future
and tell me how much you love me –
let peace descend onto the earth
let it begin
again and again
with me
🌎
Amy Lloyd
Reverence may take all kinds of forms, depending on what it is that awakens awe in you by reminding you of your true size.
~Barbara Brown Taylor
NO ONE EVER TOLD ME
(Of the Glory of Growing Older)
No one told me
it would be like this—
how growing older
is another passage
of discovery
and that aging is one
grand transformation,
and if some things
become torn apart
or even lost along the way,
many other means
show up
to bring me closer
to the center
of my heart.
.
No one ever told me
if whatever wonder
waits ahead
is in another realm
and outside of time.
But the amazement, I found,
is that the disconcerting things
within the here and now
that I stumble
and trip my way
through, also
lead me
gracefully
home.
And no one told me
that I would ever see
an earth so strong
and fragile, or
a world so sad
and beautiful.
And I surely
didn’t know
I’d have
all this life
yet in me
or such fire
inside my
bones.
🔥
Susan Frybort
Can I provoke you to send me a voicemail full of laughing?
Love is revealed beyond its invisible threading
re-stitching our lives and hearts
together
as they keep bursting at the seams
with joy-filled peals
Let your light-star shine
brighter than the sun
reflecting to the moon
and back again to your upturned smile
Uncover your shaded solar plexus
Until I am blinded by your yellow
What other colors would you like to show?
Let them shimmer and ooze
like molten, blended rainbows
Today’s lesson:
sit in the over-large, comfy chair of silence
empty, yet also full of gratitude beyond emotion
Until the oboe comes to reenergize you
then wash your face of yesterday’s smudges
and lightly step out
onto your own beautiful path
for this very moment in eternity
🌈
Amy Lloyd
An examination is always in order.
A thorough taking out,
deep intensive scanning,
fine combing,
hands gently running over every inch,
thoughts probing deepest depths
intentions
manners
motivations
yes, our heart is always mystery
Who can possibly know it?
Guard it,
know it,
teach it,
keep it,
tenderly care for it,
tend its ever growing garden.
Your whole life depends on it.
❤️
Amy Lloyd
Practice beauty everyday
listen to the hawk cry as it flies over,
hear the stampede of deer hooves as they run through the woods;
notice the first frost on the morning grass.
Follow your eyes,
to those of a stranger
bow
Feel the distance between you and a child,
pick up the phone,
hear their voice , ” hey ma.”
practice beauty everyday
Leave a tip larger than you can afford
know generosity as wisdom,
kindness as ordinary,
respect as necessary
Follow your eyes
to those of the elderly,
bow
Witness what passes too quickly,
as time,
as weather,
wonder wished
dreams yet to live
Taste the first cup of hot chocolate
marshmallows,
a tiny sip
practice beauty everyday
hold something lightly in your hands,
turn them upwards when you pray,
be moved by somersaults
a holy handshake
a hug
bow
practice beauty everyday.
Beauty
Rev. Donna Knutson
December 2017
Amazing Photos above by Leslie Haberman
There is no comfort without engagement,
no good news without strings attached.
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Every year
he says, “I love these people.
I’m going to go be with them,
just to walk them through the darkness.”
⭐️
Every year the angels tell him,
No, this is a bad idea.
It never works.
But the Eternal One nods at him and smiles
a sad little smile,
and he pours himself out
into a great mysterious emptiness,
and he comes.
⭐️
He always comes
and walks with us,
and every year I walk with him,
he smiles and nods that same smiling nod.
⭐️
There is the brief moment in the stable—
despite the hardship quite lovely, really—
but then the hard work,
the road, the town square, the disputes…
⭐️
And then he is taken.
Every year, taken:
shot beside me as we walk,
jailed, deported, lynched, crucified.
⭐️
I walk on without him,
looking for a welcome place for him,
trying to bear that light,
let it gleam just a little…
And then it gets darker,
until it seems stupid and hopeless and foolish,
and then once again,
the angels shaking their heads
but singing glory anyway,
he comes.
⭐️
Knowing, he comes,
every year he comes.
And I watch for them to take him,
and they do take him, every year,
and I say,
“The angels are right, this doesn’t work.”
⭐️
He nods and smiles and says,
“Yes it does.”
And he comes again.
And I,
a tiny light in a great emptiness,
already
I am waiting for him.
⭐️
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
come
just as you are
rusty and dusty
a bit ragged
with that nagging cough
edges frayed and worn
a bit of dust is the stuff of life
dry bones beginning to breathe
be alert, that’s not chocolate under your fingernails…
check the room, don’t let the bedbugs bite…
but do let your out-dated arrogance go up in smoke
easily, so easily, let go your striving
remember life is but a dream within a dream
kiss me with the mouth with which you just voraciously ate rare meat –
that mouth you drank copious amounts of wine, with –
just kiss me thoroughly
let your carnal juices run and mingle with mine
don’t stop to wipe your sweat dripping onto my waiting skin
let me trust you
with my darkest secrets
and yes, please, do the same for me
let’s tell the stuff that make us squirm
let’s be completely uncomfortable together
leave the light on so I see all of your naked body
while you trace my stretch marks, I will gently kiss your souls’ scars
we’ll lay all night in pools of starlight
square in the middle of the circle of us
arms and legs intertwined
as our hearts grow entwined together
until we are paralyzed by our own beauty
I am learning everything I need to know in this world
the song of the whales as they ride the green and blue star filled waves
into the night sky of eternity
🌎
Amy Lloyd
I want to write a poem the birds will understand
and the snakes and stones
the trees with their
secrets and green faces
Let it enchant the dolphins and the whales
when they are courting in the middle of the ocean
Let it talk with the aborigine
who knows the moon’s a person in the sky
And should it be the last poem in the world
let it be among the first in worlds we’ve never
seen where it may talk to rivers
there and animals we’ve only
seen in dreams Let it walk
around in rooms where
God’s footprints have remained behind
Let it be something I’ve been unable to imagine here
There’ll be fish there I may be riding on the
back of one today
Will the poem be about the cheetahs and the wind
we only see when we’re in love?
🐳
Paul Carroll
life: acoustic & amplified 