life: acoustic & amplified
poetry, quotes & thoughts about life
Archive for the category “Adventure”
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On this day of your life I believe God wants you to know…
…that there is a solution. There is. But you must keep
going to find it. You cannot stop, you cannot give up.
This is about more than just patience. This is about
more than just persistence. This is about absolute
knowing that God is on your side.
When you know this, you never give up…and the
sense of struggle goes away. You simply keep moving
forward knowing that, in the end, all will work out.
And that along the way there will be great insights
and wonderful remembering.
🎇
– Neale Donald Walsh
God Path with Robin OK 12/17/15
🌌
I won’t wish this pain away
I’ll just trust You and obey
won’t search for treasure on this ground
Cause in You my wealth is found
I know this is right where I should be
I will wait for Your light to shine in me
I will praise You every day
I am Yours
Beloved for eternity
Whatever will bring You glory
Whatever will magnify Your name
Whatever will bring You glory
Whatever, my life is not the same
Whatever will show you’re holy
Whatever I do is for Your praise
Whatever to tell my story
Whatever, my heart will sing Your grace
🌅
AL
🌋
Written on 11/22/13 at French Park in Cincinnati (first pic) Day before following God’s call to go to Louisville. $40 and no place to stay. I lived in my car for several weeks. ❤️ Miracles and adventures abounded….
finding center
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
🎄
Trees by Joyce Kilmer
photo by Jen Lemen
🌳
The simplest things in life
Are the most extraordinary
Let them reveal themselves.
– Paulo Coelho
🌲
There is magic in every little thing.
Your very breath is magic
You, showing up on this tiny planet,
at this very time in history.
The way the sun glints off your hair.
The way the trees recognize you.
The way a child can turn their head
and plunge you into grief.
it’s all about perspective.
Einstein reminds us
We have a choice in how we live.
One of two ways –
As if nothing –
OR
As if everything –
Is miraculous.
I’m so glad I choose to see the enchanted pathway.
It’s always a fine day here.
No matter what circumstance I find myself in.
Magic abounds.
🌳
AL
Wo)Men with courage do not always slay dragons, sometimes they ride them…
Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we would had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.
– Joseph Campbell
Security is a funny thing. We long for it, but it is all too often an illusion, one that covers over our authentic path, one we pay the ultimate price for. Security is a sick-cure for what ails us on the deepest levels. What we really long for is a life that is infused with purpose and connection. I know many people who promised themselves that they would live their ‘real-life’ after retiring from the quest for security. When they arrived ‘there’, they were either entirely exhausted from decades of falsity, or they had forgotten the ‘real-life’ that called them. This is what happens when we bury our precious life below mountains of obligation and distraction. We can’t get out from under them. We are only here for the blink of an eye. Better to substitute the illusion of sick-cure-ity for something authentic and alive. Better to find safety in the heart of a life deeply lived. Better to live true.
– Jeff Brown
On this day of your life I believe God wants you to know…
…that safety is not the thing you should look for in the
future. Joy is what you should look for.
Security and joy may not come in the same package.
They can…but they also cannot.
There is no guarantee.
If your primary concern is a guarantee of security,
you may never experience the truest joys of life.
This is not a suggestion that you become reckless,
but it is an invitation to at least become daring.
– Neale Donald Walsh
TRUST THE PROMISE
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
– John O’Donohue
slowly
walking by faith
expecting miracles
we rely on things to come
we hope in what is not seen
we stand on invisible ground
fly without evidence of our wings
we fight battle with foes from another dimension
we teach without seeing the whole vision
we trust what we cannot see with our eyes
we walk on
knowing,
for sure,
we are going the right way
directed by the silence
in bright, beautiful pathways of grace
and dark, eerie forests of fog
somedays we are surrounded
others we seem to walk alone
no matter
we walk on
slowly, surely
enjoying the view
or we sit and wait
relying on radical trust
we learn the virtues by living
because we have learned
what we could never learn
by our own understanding
faith is the victory
everything is grace
🌳
AL
photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT
🌳
Hope is with you when you believe
The earth is not a dream but living flesh,
That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all things you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate.
You cannot enter. But you’re sure it’s there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere in the garden
A strange new flower and an unnamed star.
Some people say we should not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just a seeming,
These are the ones who have no hope.
They think that the moment we turn away,
The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up by the hands of thieves.
🌳
Hope by Czeslaw Milosz
It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up. ― Babe Ruth
Never. Never. Never Quit.
– Winston Churchill
love beyond reason. trust without borders
photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT
We develop grace as we learn with the guiding hand of the universe, life will unfold exactly the way it should.
The idea of trusting the universe is a popular one these days, but many of us don’t know what this really means and we often have a hard time doing it. This is partly because the story of humankind is most often presented as a story about struggle, control, and survival, instead of one of trust and collaboration with the universe. Yet, in truth, we need to adhere to both ideas in this life.
On the one hand, there is much to be said about exerting control over our environment. We created shelter to protect ourselves from the elements. We hunted for animals and invented agriculture to feed ourselves. We built social infrastructures to protect ourselves and create community. This is how we survive and grow as a civilization. However, it is also clear that there are plenty of things that we cannot control, no matter how hard we try, and we often receive support from an unseen force – a universe that provides us with what we cannot provide for ourselves.
It is a good idea to take responsibility for the things in life that we can control or create. We work so we can feed, clothe, and shelter our loved ones and ourselves. We manifest our dreams and visions in physical form with hard work and forethought. But at a certain point, when have done all that we can, we must let go and allow the universe to take over. This requires trust. It requires a trust that runs deeper than just expecting things to turn out the way we want them to. Sometimes they will, and sometimes they won’t. We develop equanimity and grace as we learn to trust that, with the guiding hand of the universe, life will unfold exactly the way it should. We are engaged in an ongoing relationship with a universe that responds to our thoughts and actions.
🌀
dailyom.com
by Madisyn Taylor
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always –
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)…
– T. S. Eliot
🌀
‘What if it were so much
simpler than that’
said the wiseman.
‘But …’ said the fool
🌀
But Said the Fool by Nic Askew
the very most grand adventurous perspectives
But for my hand, as unattempted yet,
Like a poor beggar, raileth on the rich.
Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail
And say there is no sin but to be rich;
And being rich, my virtue then shall be
To say there is no vice but beggary.
Since kings break faith upon commodity,
Gain, be my lord, for I will worship thee.
– Philip the Bastard from “King John” (2.1.592)
People don’t like love, they like that flittery flirty feeling. They don’t love love – love is sacrificial, love is ferocious, it’s not emotive. Our culture doesn’t love love, it loves the idea of love. It wants the emotion without paying anything for it.
– Matt Chandler
time wears down
as life takes its anguished toll
of strained shoulders and weary back
from the unyielding pressure of anger’s mighty weight
lash of black eyed look,
the demon,
lying in wait,
blame unleashed
words stripping tender heart skin
of the vulnerable
innocence unprepared for attack
leaving hope in shreds,
shame cocks its hat sideways
flames of passion freeze in place
ice, brittle, cutting
fills veins,
painful,
slicing to ribbons
destroying all goodness in its path
wounds with nothing to hide
nowhere to hide
Only you can change this –
you CAN change this!
I know for sure…
you can…
if you choose to…
God only knows
if you will
🔹
AL
3 spectacular wishes on this day…for every day
love
home
music
AL 5/13/15
Real riches are the riches possessed inside.
– B. C. Forbes
in a blue sky day
Woke up mid-dream
last night
(last night = wee hour morning)
Awakened by
broken sad mourning
My whole life
this date has been a celebration of life
My dad’s life –
a soul who entered this realm November 24 –
74 years of love ago
Today, this date brings tears
and morning mourning
Followed by blue sky
Up on the red roof
Fully alive
Generating compost
Organic buzzing be garden community possibility
Lost key
Kitchen studio
Boots on ladders
Roast beef sprout ciabatta
Pirates of the Carribbean
Stories of lobsters racing in
crusty rolls of butter
Once, years ago, I found my too soon gone Grandma
Today, in a swing overlooking a river
graced by such beautiful bridges
touching sky whilst grounding feet
step by stepping ever overwater
beneath sky,
I felt my daddy…
I sensed him smiling down upon November
gently holding my heart
and I couldn’t help but feel
the way he gently
firmly let go
of my pink stripe
banana seat bike
as I rode down the hill
of Kosta Drive
all those years ago
That moment I knew he knew
I could do this myself
And gave me the beautiful gift
of setting me
and my bicycle free.
🚲
Robin OK
Muse of Collaborative Completion + Visionary for Creative Collaborative ReTREATS
What is your incomplete creative project? Let me help you breathe it to life!
Phone: 513-659-3356
email: laughndream@gmail.com
website: laughanddream.com
💜
Don’t miss the 5th annual Creative Collaborative ReTREAT, Sep 30-Oct 2, 2016!
Website: creativecollaborativeretreats.com
email: creative.collaborative.us@gmail.com
In a day of goodness
We splashed this city all over outselves
Stopped to smell the lingering roses
Went home happily full from our adventures
Life is bittersweet
full of separation, loss, grief, and hurting hearts
full of friendship, adventure, kindness, beauty and truth
I love you
I miss you
I hurt
I laugh
Life is good
💞
AL
I want my grief
to be brilliant, fast and gone.
Like Mozart. Or Stevie Ray.
Like fireworks. Boom! Flash!
Ooh, ahh. OK, done. Let’s go.
I want my grief to be brave.
Hurts more now, heals faster,
Grandma said, pouring salt
On a skinned knee.
I want to stand up to grief,
Stand it down, like the
Tiny man, big tank
In Tiananmen Square.
Because. Because if I am brave,
Bold, salty, open enough
The tank, the bleeding, the tears
Will stop sooner. I tell myself.
But grief laughs. Humbles me.
I lose keys, break cups, get lost.
Asked at CarMax Why are you
Selling this car? I burst
Into an embarrassment of tears.
A friend says, One doesn’t have grief,
Grief has you.
We wrestle, to the mat. I’m pinned.
But sometimes I break free.
Break patterns instead of dishes.
Start to write myself a new story,
To fling myself toward yes,
Begin to say, Oh. Now this. . . . Observe
What life brings. Reframe. Say,
I’m not wrestling grief,
We’re dancing.
So, I put my right foot in . . .
And turn myself about.
💔
I Want My Grief by Peg Runnels
to each his own
18 years ago
I stood at the edge
of a great abyss
in life
a part of me,
not known until that time,
had awakened
now I had a choice to make,
to accept –
or deny –
this part of myself,
which was revealed
in such a wild,
drastic,
unexpected
and overwhelming manner
I knew this would be
what, ultimately,
saved,
or
destroyed,
me.
as I stood,
still in innocence,
not really knowing –
yet, somehow,
knowing in every way –
the costs,
the benefits,
the responsibility,
the awareness.
the long dark road ahead,
the excruciating valley years to come,
the sharp, rugged climb up the mountain.
18 years ago,
I struggled
with all of this
as I stood on a balcony
and made certain vows
concerning the choices
I would make through
my time of learning:
I would only follow love.
No matter how I failed,
I would remember it is not about how good I am.
I would try, to the best of my ability, to live the words of Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount.
I would never make a choice
simply to benefit myself,
only to get money,
or to be comfortable.
I would learn to be truthful and fair
and be the person I wanted to be.
I would be honest with myself – always – especially when I was wrong, or made a mistake –
yet, I would not live in fear or hate myself if I made mistakes,
I would stay aware and learn –
so I would not make the same mistake twice.
I would make the best choice I could at any given moment,
and then move forward the best I could with no regret.
I would do my best and give my best.
I would look for good things every day.
And with these parameters firmly in place,
like Eve,
I bit that apple
and began…
for good…
for bad…
to make my choices.
from there I began to grow in wisdom, knowledge and self respect
from there I began the path to healing
from there I began to understand myself and realized each souls value, including my own
from there I have learned all I know about life and love
from there I began the long walk home
💞
AL
I must lie down where all the ladders start,
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.
– Yeats
life: acoustic & amplified 