If you have one hour of air
And many hours to go,
You must breathe slowly.
If you have one arm’s length
and many things to care for,
You must give freely.
If you have one chance to know God
And many doubts, you must
Set your heart on fire.
We are blessed.
Each day is a chance.
We have two arms.
Fear wastes air.
🔥
Freefall by Mark Nepo
photos found at http://www.pinterest.com
An extra day —
Like the painting’s fifth cow, who looks out directly, straight toward you, from inside her black and white spots.
An extra day —
Accidental, surely: the made calendar stumbling over the real as a drunk trips over a threshold too low to see.
An extra day —
With a second cup of black coffee. A friendly but businesslike phone call. A mailed-back package. Some extra work, but not too much — just one day’s worth, exactly.
An extra day —
Not unlike the space between a door and its frame when one room is lit and another is not, and one changes into the other as a woman exchanges a scarf.
An extra day —
Extraordinarily like any other. And still there is some generosity to it, like a letter re-readable after its writer has died.
💌
February 29 by Jane Hirshfield
I hope you have a great day
I hope you know I love you
I hope you love me in whatever way you can
I hope you see the miracles today
I hope you make good choices
I hope you find peace
I hope life blooms again for you
I hope the lights lead you home
I hope you see the shining possibility of the future
I hope you always remember
😘
AL
One day you will find the thing
You are meant to love
And it will whittle you down
Make you lean of excess
One day the tattered baggage
You’ve been carrying from place to place
Will get set down on the side of the road
With hardly a thought
One day you’ll decide you’ve had enough
Of the shackles chaffing your ankles
And you’ll walk out of them
The ties that once bound so tightly suddenly slack
One day you’ll be nothing but sinew and bone and burning passion
All claws and wails and sweetness and strength
A wild thing
A thing that’s found its home
🏡
One Day by BRANDI REYNOLDS
photo sources found at http://www.pinterest.com
It’s all connected –
All the love,
All the loss,
All the joy,
All the pain.
The world is made of God.
We live in the ocean of God’s breath,
His very words.
We are all artists.
We all speak creation.
Our words are our greatest art form,
make sure they create a masterpiece.
God is love is life is truth is word is love is –
every little thing is connected to each other.
Everything I really needed to know
I learned from the ocean and the trees.
The mountains introduced me to the angels.
Acorns were my very first teachers,
the finest flock of seagulls are my most recent.
We are the temple.
We includes the universe we find ourselves in.
We are brothers and sisters to stars and starships.
🚀
AL
I think of how cakes are so great for celebrating with the jubilant, and how they are so great for offering a little sweet in the midst of sadness. Words are good, but sometimes they fail, and when they do, there’s always cake.
It really is as simple as that.
🍰
read full blog at link below:
http://theartofsimple.net/sometimes-it-really-is-as-simple-as-cake/
It’s a place where God
is doing things out loud.
Throaty passion blaring
from hot speakers.
There’s crazy, messy, earthy energy,
colorful and a little smudgy.
Where grace, cake and mercy
laughs, dances and flows freely.
Right in this river of life.
Everyone there knows –
‘grace is all we got
to make it through another day’
There’s an honest acknowledgement
that we got nuthin’
– and I mean nuthin’-
to make us worthy
except
to accept
that we all already are
beloved.
And that my friends
makes it rare and beautiful.
a very hard place on this earth
to pull yourself away from.
🎂
AL
Picasso, when asked if painter’s ideas come to him “by chance or by design answer: “I don’t have a clue. Ideas are simply starting points. I can rarely set them down as they come to my mind. As soon as I start to work, others well up in my pen. To know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing… When I find myself facing a blank page, that’s always going through my head. What I capture in spite of myself interests me more than my own ideas”.
Thank you, in advance. It’s what I desire. 💞
Mark Nepo tells us to,
‘put down what doesn’t work –
so that we can find what is sacred’.
What worked so well yesterday,
may not work today.
We wear out our structures of known truth,
the frameworks of what we use for living,
for healing.
Let them go,
trust in the new architecture –
modern,
with our personal, classic twist.
We are always becoming.
Watch for the signs of structural failure,
build the new bridge,
delight in this magnificent design,
those amazing cranes hanging in mid-air,
strong, foundational columns,
the rusty, hard rebar of our personal growth,
rising from deep within the waters muddy bottom,
creating the new skyline of your life,
welcome this new place of crossing.
It can handle rush hour,
or heavy foot-traffic.
Continue the build,
always creating with the future in mind,
before the old fully implodes underneath our feet.
🏗
AL
photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT
I place on the alter of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Waves of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.
May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.
May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.
🌀
– John O’Donohue
Excerpt from, ‘A Morning Offering’
TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US (US) / BENEDICTUS (Europe)
In the space between breaths
It can be gone
A months worth of words
Erased with a fingertip
A 12, 30 even 60 year marriage over
With 4 words spoken:
I want a divorce
A home with all it’s possessions
Destroyed in a matter of minutes in the fury of nature –
Fire or storm
Life
Love
So fragile
With no guarantees
Of longevity
Or comfort
Begs to be felt
Now
To be counted for the sake of goodness
This is the only moment that counts
The only thing eternal
Don’t wait
Take a deep deep breath
Of the spirit that is giving it all
Say thank you
For the only gift that matters
The only thing that remains
All else can be destroyed
When nothing else remains
What is this eternal gift,
given new every morning?
Love
💖
AL
quote photo sources found at http://www.pinterest.com
Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am
🛤
qII, 29 [Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower] by Rainer Maria Rilke
Crossroads and choices, now is the time to decide which path will lead to the garden and more healthy life choices. One just doesn’t wait until Midsummer and think about growing fresh produce for a salad.
– Old Moss Woman’s Secret Garden/facebook
When an open heart meets an open hand, the result is more feast and more love, enough for a small village to be nurtured from this drawer alone. I see this and recognize him instantly: a soul brother, a lover of life, a father, a friend, a ringleader, a listener, a creative co-conspirator, a holder…of space, of hearts, of possibilities. A man with much to give and more to say, to a yearning, hopeful world.
– Jen Lemen
photo sources found at http://www.pinterest.com
life: acoustic & amplified 