life: acoustic & amplified
poetry, quotes & thoughts about life
Archive for the category “attitude”
gift
Longest night.
Darkness falls like snow,
falls and falls,
deepening.
Older than the universe,
here before it,
and will be after.
Wraps an arm around us
as if we’re old friends.
We are.
Darkness lives in us,
radiates from us.
We speak it.
Darkness is the velvet cloth
where you cherish the gem
of your presence among us,
darkness the womb,
darkness the manger
that cradles your light,
this holy being
that becomes us,
births us.
In the darkness
you do not come to us,
we come from you.
Because you are with and not apart,
even the darkness
is you.
Because you shine in it
the dark is our dark,
none of it unchanged.
Your being our light,
your hereness our life,
shining in the longest night.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
To go into the darkness with a light
is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark.
Go without light and find that the dark too, blooms and sings
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
– Wendell Berry
Black. out. black.
Black. on. black.
Dark. on dark. on dark.
I was simply looking for home.
Not knowing the current alley would lead
to where the sidewalk ended
I stepped off the edge
out of the world of light
waking into morning night
a banished sun
no stars
or moon
or streetlights
or fireflies
or lighters
in pitch darkness
I lay, unable to move,
senses adjusting
to what is my new reality
hearing the life
that lives here
wondering if I’ll make friends
while I’m here
learning this new space.
🌌
AL
Gift suggestions:
To your enemy – forgiveness.
To an opponent – tolerance.
To a friend – your heart.
To a customer – service.
To every child – a good example.
To all – love.
💞
– Oren Arnold
following
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….
loving you loving me
I have loved in life and I have been loved.
I have drunk the bowl of poison from the hands of love as nectar,
and have been raised above life’s joy and sorrow.
My heart, aflame in love, set afire every heart that came in touch with it.
My heart has been rent and joined again;
My heart has been broken and again made whole;
My heart has been wounded and healed again;
A thousand deaths my heart has died, and thanks be to love, it lives yet.
I went through hell and saw there love’s raging fire,
and I entered heaven illumined with the light of love.
I wept in love and made all weep with me;
I mourned in love and pierced the hearts of men;
And when my fiery glance fell on the rocks, the rocks burst forth as volcanoes.
The whole world sank in the flood caused by my one tear;
With my deep sigh the earth trembled, and when I cried aloud the name of my beloved,
I shook the throne of God in heaven.
I bowed my head low in humility, and on my knees I begged of love,
“Disclose to me, I pray thee, O love, thy secret.”
She took me gently by my arms and lifted me above the earth, and spoke softly in my ear,
“My dear one, thou thyself art love, art lover,
and thyself art the beloved whom thou hast adored.
🤗
Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Dance of the Soul
Photos found at http://www.pinterest.com
brothers and sisters
My soul sings praise to God,
who has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
God has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
—Luke 1.46, 51-53
This dance is not the wrecking ball it sounds like.
It’s only that we’re startled that it’s love not might.
The blossom bursts the stone we live in.
The Almighty naked and small, always, always.
In our vacancies the overwhelming Presence,
granting what we so firmly withhold,
saving what is beyond hope,
undoing our undoing,
lifting up what you despaired of,
putting to rest your own despotic king.
The righting of our upended minds.
Evil we can’t stop, stopped.
The mending of our grasp, and our failure to grasp.
Looking for love in all the right places.
In darkness thick as stone let there be life.
The truth of what is made of dust, or light.
Tyrants spew nightmares,
throw heavy shadows, heavy sounds,
but the poorest child defeats them.
A woman alive in her body shifts mountains.
She sings,
earth trembles.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
there are kings in this world
and relatives of those who claim the title ‘king’
distant and weak
who still claim they are special
some call them ‘blue bloods’
some pretend that’s important
that being of supposedly royal linage
is to be desired.
Thing is, it’s an illusion,
a fake.
Mean and ruthless men,
brutal thugs,
willing to kill and subject others for their own gain,
grasp power,
name themselves kings,
and we gladly make them into celebrities.
Truth is each soul weighs the same.
Truth is, the only king is Christ,
and he came to set us free from such brutal horror –
because love is the true royalty,
and love always sets us free.
Truth is, we are each the
Beloved, special unique creations of God.
Truth is, many times we delight in bondage,
power is an interesting thing.
we love our idols
especially when we can claim to call
ourselves,
our children,
princesses and princes –
no matter how diluted the shade of ‘blue’ we want claim as our own,
no matter how delusional we are,
how vain and arrogant.
how we have been tricked.
we have traded our true royal birthright
for a small bowl of beans –
which is sure to make us gassy.
when will we realize the truly triumphant need no slaves?
love comes simply through our helpless infant self
and rides on donkeys
through the streets of our world
God simply wants to be with us
Jesus loves all the little children
our hearts tell us so
if we will just look past the golden tiaras
and listen
we will hear the angels singing
The Hallelujah Chorus!
we all bleed from the same source
we are all true nobility
we are all children of God
😇
AL
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
simply still
In the sixth month already
of the impossible
Gabriel,
so usually unseeable—
startling,
though you thought him so foreign,
how nearer than you
to the seed of your life—
fills the room with his wings,
wraps with his words
this world
beside God’s so small,
sets it in the greater one
among stars
and you
lit by the same light,
and calls forth your trust in heaven’s actual, —
for with God nothing is impossible—
the divine within,
inviting your invitation
from even deeper in,
a Word,
a world entrusted to you,
your being
that by gift and labor blesses,
brought with singing
through the portal of this blood of birth
and that crucial other,
calling to life
in your drab littleness
the body of your holiness,
the flesh that God without you cannot have.
Even God waits
to see the miracle,
the birth that only you can birth.
There is no test for paradise,
only paradise.
Say yes.
😇
_________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.designlovefest.com/2012/12/holiday-centerpiece/
time to get quiet
some years ask questions
some shake the foundations of our worlds
in a year of answers
be as quiet as possible
practice solitude
acquaintance yourself with silence
open your inner ears
listen for voices from other dimensions
care for your soul
allow deep mystery to bloom
sit in nature
find spots of beauty to fill you up
take time
go slow
so you can hear everything
waiting to be revealed
for such a time as this
🌪
AL
addictions of poetry
Slowly coming to acknowledge out loud that poetry is everything to me. I cannot live without it the way that others need love or religion or purpose or cause. Nothing, except the softness of the body, ignites me more. Nothing fills, feeds or illuminates me like this. To find a new poet is like being returned to an old love. To discover a lover of poetry is like being returned to someone from my original tribe. Completely thrilled this morning to be lying in my bed silently reading Nariyyah Waheed. Thrilled. Here are a few sweet lines. https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/7145613.Nayyirah_Waheed
– Jen Lemen
I read poetry
And it’s so familiar
I like this way of words.
I slip into the passion,
the broken hearts,
so like my own.
The depth of loving,
it is my own.
The beauty,
these words caught inside
someplace within myself,
suddenly breaking free from this other angle.
Broken love,
twisting in the wind of unequal relationships.
The parables,
the simple narrative,
the stark condensed truth,
the healing,
the beauty of nature, home, love, life, laughter…
Anything can become a poem.
Words strung,
so like my own way,
yet not,
new,
fresh,
sometimes not quite understandable, yet.
I am in love with poems.
I learn from their awareness
I may get tired of my own heart wringing words,
I may get bored with my own platitudes,
but, everyday,
I find the words in poems of another
to inspire me,
to allow me to see,
to teach me,
to make me laugh,
to get me through my day.
Everyday I realize how much poetry means to me
I am so blessed to be a small part of this magic.
I love poems.
I need poems.
I am a poet.
That settles in a good spot within me,
as I settle in,
with the perfect shade of coffee,
to read my morning dose.
🤗
AL
Photos found at http://www.pinterest.com
life: acoustic & amplified 