life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “attitude”

23 Nov 2015

for the love of all things poetry 💞  

 

 I fit words together, 
hoping they mean something.  

Wanting them to make sense. 

To myself. 

To others. 

Allowing them my raw emotion. 

Willing to give them up freely. 

Creating a monument, 

for this one moment in time, 

to share with the world. 

These words become something tangible. 

A thing, 

a gift, 

a piece of art. 

A part of me, 

stays with them. 

Little pieces of me live, 

like shapes in a puzzle, 

becoming 

a picture, 

a flower, 

a song. 

Small particles of my soul, 

like tiny rose buds,

opening in my hand, 

mesmerizes with it’s 

beauty, 

touch, 

fragrance. 

I write words on a page, 

and feel love 

spreading outward, 

as the flowering happens, 

as this thought blooms. 

As words become thoughts about… 

As the pieces become beautiful… 

As the poem is born, 

of water, 

blood, 

star dust 

and becomes… 

a small piece of my soul,

left behind on pages, 

for others to find, 

sharing a small moment, 

never to be lost, 

because it has been 

recorded, 

acknowledged, 

emptied. 

Gratitude makes room for new 

miracles, 

learning, 

beauty, 

as they find their new home 

ready, 

emptied, 

expectant. 

Waiting for more 

truth, 

goodness, 

love, 

to flow and enter in. 

There is always more, 

and more than enough. 

The heart that gives gathers, 

but never tries to hold anything hostage. 

Love, 

giving, 

pretty much everything, 

about life, 

only works when we allow it, 

all of it –

every sacred cow, 

every color on the wheel,

every tiny wildflower we see,

every spec of mud, 

to be free. 

❣

AL

 

  

  
Photos found at http://www.pinterest.com 

  

Posted in art, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Choice, connection, courage, create, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, friendship, fun, grace, Gratitude, Habits, healing, Letting Go, Love, mystery, Passion, Poetry, Reflection | Leave a comment
23 Nov 2015

I am so much more than I ever thought I was – Sherri Yerkes (speaking from the heart) 

  

So several weeks ago now, Robin Ok called to connect on the upcoming Creative Collaborative Retreat 2015. 

http://www.creativecollaborativeretreats.com

I still remember her words, “I signed you up for some things that you can say ‘no’ to these if you want….

How exciting! My heart already was saying a great, big, fat ‘yes’ – before I even heard the list, which ended with a session on poetry! 

Oh joy!!! YES!!! Ideas poured in…

The retreat weekend came – 13-15 of this month and it was everything, and more, than expected! 

Beautiful, powerful, connecting, art-full, musical, spiritual, abundant, accepting, empowering – on-and-on I can, and will, go. I was overwhelmed with love and joy on many levels, but my greatest bit of on-going-bursting-out-all-over joy is from my poetry session. 

New words were framed, created, brought out of heart-hiding into beings of light, onto old inspiring paper and into the hearts reading and listening. We shared our poems at the end of the hour – no one left with dry hearts or eyes. 

Poems (words)  are living things. They touch us, heal us, bring us joy and create space inside us as we bring forward what was inside and allow new thoughts to be born, creativity always creates anew inside and outside of ourselves. We give to receive and in receiving we give back again. 

This magic has taken root in some great and powerful ways, I am so amazed at the beauty, the power, the courage, the immensity of these poets – new and seasoned veterans – all old souls. 

I am so grateful to have been able to share this session, which helped connect these amazing, gifted women with their inner, living, beautiful poetry. I believe poetry lives inside each of us. The need for beauty is essential for us to live, discovering, excavating that beauty is our life-long, ever-changing, most-challenging and surprising gift. 

Check out Barbara Endel’s new, amazing poetry blog –

https://poetintrainingblog.wordpress.com

🔥

This poem came to me yesterday…kinda summed it all up:

Our poems 

Are like the wart-hogs 

In the zoo 

It’s hard to say 

Why there should be such creatures 
But once our life gets into them 

As sometimes happens 

Our poems 

Turn into living things 

And there’s no arguing 

With living things 

They are 

The way they are 
Our poems 

May be rough 

Or delicate 

Little 

Or great 
But always 

They have inside them 

A confluence of cries 

And secret languages 
And always 

They are improvident 

And free 

They keep 

A kind of Sabbath 
They play 

On sooty fire escapes 

And window ledges 
They wander in and out 

Of jails and gardens 

They sparkle 

In the deep mines 

They sing 

In breaking waves 

And rock like wooden cradles. 

💞

Living Things by Anne Porter

   
  

 
Living in astonished and passionate gratitude for each of you. Thank you for allowing me to inspire you…thank you for inspiring me! 

  
 If you do nothing Nothing will be done. 

Sounds like we should know this, 

right? 

It’s just fascinating to me to see 

the result of a decision to create a newsletter dedicated to good news, 

then to commit to creating that publication for one full year. 

8 full years later, 

as I ended that project, 

to make way for new projects, 

there were over 135 issues 

on a website devoted to that good-news thing. 

4 years ago I decided to begin a daily poetry and quotes blog, 

I now have almost 2000 blog posts.

December 2012, I committed to a poem a day. 

11 months later, 

I had over 700 poems written. 

It’s crazy cool! 

And it has been a huge lesson to me, 

Dreams and Ideas are great, 

but only the commitment, focus 

and actually acting on the idea, 

will call it forth into the world. 

All those words, ideas and poems would still be inside me somewhere, 

if I had not said, yes, to DOING it. 

Nothing gets done without the work. 

Intention and action go together

in order to build the house, 

in order to change the world.

AL

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blessing, Blog, Choice, connection, courage, create, Encouragement, Faith, Gratitude, Growth, Habits, Happiness, inspiration, intimacy | Leave a comment
22 Nov 2015

a graceful feeling

   
    
    

 
  Anything that you learn becomes your wealth, a wealth that cannot be taken away from you; whether you learn it in a building called school or in the school of life. To learn something new is a timeless pleasure and a valuable treasure. And not all things that you learn are taught to you, but many things that you learn you realize you have taught yourself.

― C. JoyBell
  
I spent my weekend with my amazing friends, Kitt, Mike, Rebecca and Christian Haberman, in Louisville. 

I sum this powerful time of connection and sharing with this: 

I learned things. Lots of beautiful things. Things I will have with me always. (Happy Sigh) I am so grateful for all of the great people I have in my life. 

I stayed in the room below (Lesley Haberman being all grown up and off in college) and got ready with these messages before me, reminding me, filling my heart. Messages written by a beautiful, teenage girl to remind herself….remember…remember..

💞

Thank you, Lesley, thank you Haberman Family. Love is so very good to us! 

   
  What a beautiful world… 

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, be, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blessing, Choice, commitment, community, connection, courage, determination, Encouragement, Faith, Freedom, friendship, grace, Gratitude, Growth, Habits, Happiness, healing, inspiration, Life, Love | Leave a comment
21 Nov 2015

what we choose lives on

  
For everyone you touch, you also reach everyone they will ever know… and everyone they will ever know… and everyone they will ever know… So for the rest of all time, your kindness will be felt, in waves that will spread, long after you move on.

 #notesfromtheuniverse http://www.tut.com/Inspiration/nftu

  

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Beliefs, Change, Choice, commitment, connection, find art at pinterest, Freedom, friendship, giving, inspiration, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, light, Love, mystery, nature, power, Reality, receiving, Relationships | Leave a comment
20 Nov 2015

largely speaking 

  
Sweet Darkness
When your eyes are tired

the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone

no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark

where the night has eyes

to recognize its own.
There you can be sure

you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb 

tonight.
The night will give you a horizon

further than you can see.
You must learn one thing.

The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds

except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness

to learn
anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.

🔥

 – David Whyte

  

  
I sense infinity 

I open myself to the unlimited 

and with that opening 

I glimpse unending love 

I breathe the cold morning air

Absorb the sunlight dancing on the water 

take in the sight of millions of diamonds 

on blue velvet 

and I struggle, 

reaching, to open fully 

to take in this message 

to understand this beauty 

I sit in silence 

I listen in wonder 

I stay in that moment 

for eternity 

it is for eternity 

as I walk home 

I ask my soul’s questions: 

How will I allow God to love me?

How will I allow love to touch me?

☀️

AL     

 

photo by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT 

Posted in action, Adventure, Alone, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Choice, color, dark, determination, find art at pinterest, Gratitude, healing, home, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, Relationships | Leave a comment
18 Nov 2015

some things are sad

  
      
Every now and then
we leave off our pious yearnings,

and even our righteous ire,

and sit down to the hard work 
of being sad for the world.

It takes guts, 

God knows—

not anger but sorrow;

it tires prophets and psalmists alike.

The wolf that cries in the long valley,

the sea that chants its lament

over and over with sighs and tears,

the hermit on sore knees,

 
the angels at their posts

taking turns offering up their 
aching hearts,

even Christ weeping,

they can’t do it alone.

In the end

 it is 
the broken hearted

in whom we find 
the deepest companionship.

We come away wet with grief

yet oddly strengthened

with the fibers of hope.

In grief for the world 

we touch its worth.

In sorrow we find each other,

and there, 

the substance of joy.

Weird, isn’t it, 

how that alone

is the healing balm we ask? 


__________________ 

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

 

“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 watered to full growth 

Being alive does not come without cost 

We love

we lose 

we grieve 

We lament 

We love 

We commune 

We learn 

We choose 

to continue to make the choices

to love

to bring the song 

that fills spring with joy 

and the whole world 

With light and love 
AL

  

Posted in attitude, awareness, be, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blessing, Change, Choice, connection, courage, Grieving, Growth, Habits, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, music | Leave a comment
18 Nov 2015

create new pathways 

 

 
And here’s what made it happen…
They tell me –

Not to…

Don’t…

Forget the writer, 

leave her be,

Focus on some other things,

words need not be free
They say no need to share adventures..

Stuff the stories, 

hide your truths

Don’t capture the experience, it’s really of no use

They say 

other things need my attention, my energy,
For God’s sake, earn a wage –
I’ll tell you what that does for me –

…finally, finally…finally – 

sends me to the page
And all the walls and stops crash-tumble-trickle down
I sit furious-

typing – 

damn punctuation, tense, pronoun
Does it really matter if they she he we agree?

It’s time to tell my story – for once, for now – for ME

💜

 – Robin OK

   http://www.creativecollaborativeretreats.com

 

  
   

  

And then there comes a moment 

when all you have suffered 

all you have learned 

all you have lost and found 

rise up and become 

and suddenly you are 

here 

you are 

who you dreamed of being 

so many years ago 

suddenly you have arrived 

at what you caught glimpses of 

for so many years 

and the search, 

the free fall of broken dreams, 

broken hearts 

broken everything 

tumbling down rabbit holes 

stumbling over the feet 

of your own lack of knowledge 

is over 

you find yourself on solid ground 

stable 

steady 

raising your Ebenezer 

those tributes to God 

for all the mighty stones of help 

building this foundation on the solid rocks 

you know so well 

and though the pilgrimage may continue 

though the journey is definitely not over 

though life is fragile 

and security an illusion 

there is a new sureness to your step 

a trusting unshakable 

a calm in it all 

a new assurance of provision 

a new traveling song to be sung as you walk forward 

always forward 

always pilgrim ready for new adventures 

forgetting the names of what lay behind 

you press on to your calling 

the prize set before 

reveling in the mercies ever new

for each new day 

there is no stopping now 

you have found something 

which cannot ever be taken 

you have arrived here by your own determination 

reached a place 

both spiritual and physical 

a place of such magnitude 

the light shines from every angle 

it has sealed up the oldest sores

bound up the deepest wounds 

satisfied the deepest longings 

changed everything 

settled old scores with finality 

no longer will you settle for less than you deserve 

no more will you tolerate anything less than your best and highest offerings 

you must be all you can be 

gratitude fills you for this place 

a place so lovely 

it can bear up 

even under the weight 

of our hearts wildest desires 

with just this simple name 

it resounds inside our souls like a bell – 

home 

yes, beloved, 

you are home. 

right where you belong. 

❤️ 

AL

  

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, commitment, community, connection, courage, create, find art at pinterest, Freedom, Gratitude, inspiration, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, Passion, Patience, perceptions, Relationships | Leave a comment
17 Nov 2015

even on the hard days    

  Respectfully given,

exalted being

full of grace,

remember to forget:

surrender struggles to catch it’s breath,

then falls soft

as evening prayers at twilight,

gathering into the corners of our hearts

before falling full 

onto the center of our living circle,

 free and happy as a Friday night. 

next morning’s sun fills us, 

each day, each season. 

nurture moves with grace, 

evolving slowly thru 

our caring hands,

our grieving hearts,

our shared experience, 

our acts of courage,

the healing salt of our tears,

the energy generation of our joy. 

with pieces of our true love,

we fly flags, 

of prayer,

of peace,

of poems,

of our own making 

to heal the worlds – 

within us/

without us. 

we allow –

simply complex. 

we understand –

clearly unclear. 

we stand and fill our world with 

the beauty,

the mystery,

of sound,

of hum,

of laughter,

of voice,

of music,

protecting us 

from lesser gods,

the terror all around. 

love is the shield, 

love is the answer,

love is the choice,

love is our glory,

our salvation,

crowning us 

sons and daughters 

of the King. 

at times,

in spite of our broken pieces,

our refusal to believe,

even our darkened hearts. 

 –

astonishing, 

isn’t it?

❣

AL

A sob in the night 

awakens us from dreams,
a crack opens in the wall

and in seeps the dark stream
with pieces of broken things in it,

and blood, and our own ragged edge,
and in seeps the light,

and the voice singing.
We want to pull the wall around us,

the sorrow pouring in,
but it is breached now,

it is only an illusion,
and we are out in the dangerous light,

the fragile street,
tender as everyone else,

ready to duck, ready to weep.
We are all refugees now,

foreigners, except to foreigners.
It’s the egg that is cracked,

the stone rolled away.
If there is a place for love,

for your own brave soul, this is it.
The cord in another’s heart

knotted in yours, 
the hand reaching for you

you can reach out to.
Terror and the stillness,

and the voice singing. 
__________________ 

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

   
   
and for each person in this world 🙏🏻

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, Change, Choice, connection, courage, create, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, friendship, fun, grace, Gratitude, Grieving, Growth, healing, home, Hope, Imagine, inspiration, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, Patience, Peace, People, perceptions, Poetry, Prayer, receiving, Relationships | Leave a comment
16 Nov 2015

grid & flow  

 

THE SEA IN YOU
When I wake under the moon, 

I do not know who I have become unless 

I move closer to you, obeying the give and take

of the earth as it breathes the slender length

of your body, so that in breathing with the tide 

that breathes in you, and moving with you 

as you come and go, and following you, half in light 

and half in dark, I feel the first firm edge of my floating palm 

touch and then trace the pale light of your shoulder 

to the faint, moon-lit shadow of your smooth cheek, 

and drawing my finger through the pearl water of your skin,

I sense the breath on your lips touch and then warm

the finest, furthest, most unknown edge of my sense of self,

so that I come to you under the moon 

as if I had swum under the deepest arch of the ocean, 

to find you living where no one could possibly live,

and to feel you breathing, where no one could 

possibly breathe, and I touch your skin as I would 

touch a pale whispering spirit of the tides that my arms 

try to hold with the wrong kind of strength and my lips 

try to speak with the wrong kind of love and I follow

you through the ocean night listening for your breath

in my helpless calling to love you as I should, and I lie 

next to you in your sleep as I would next to the sea,

overwhelmed by the rest that arrives in me and by the weight 

that is taken from me and what, by morning, 

is left on the shore of my waking joy.

…

THE SEA IN YOU by David Whyte
  
 
It is the great mystery of life

That to every part

there is a counterpart

the polarity is the great gift

Also the great curse

The friction keeps us learning

else we die, even as we live. 

Gravity keeps on earth

Anti-gravity surrounds us a few miles above 

without both we would not exist. 

Trees breathe carbon in

Exhale oxygen

We do the opposite. 

The sun and moon 

are in the perfect spots for us to survive. 

We fight change,

though it is the one thing 

that truly allows us to become. 

We want to have answers –

Cut. 

Dry. 

Concrete. 

We want to KNOW 

Yet the great mystery of life is letting the mystery be greater than us

while inhaling the small parts we can comprehend

and using them to create good with our part. 

seeing new every day.

evolving slowly. 

The yin. 

—

The yang. 

Within the darkness

We find the light. 

With letting go of the other

We finally own our oneness. 

Within the deepest sorrow

We release ourselves

for our most complete joy. 

When we give ourselves empty

we receive back waves of abundance and are filled fresh. 

We want what glitters, 

but find the best gifts 

are always on the bottom shelf,

sometimes a little dusty from not being used. 

Each and every day, in order to find our way into the unlimited potential of our highest self

we must first commit to our holy and unique calling,

our own glorious belovedness. 
AL

💜

Photos found on http://www.pinterest.com

  

 

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, connection, find art at pinterest, giving, healing, Letting Go, Life, light, Love, Miracles, mystery, nature, Passion, Relationships, soul and spirit, strength, Trust, truth, Uncategorized, voice, Vulnerability, words | Leave a comment
14 Nov 2015

da da da dada

 

I’m not asking for permission
tho I thank you for your good intentions in the giving

I surrender to 

life

voice

purpose

passion 

healing

love

music

breath

spirit

joy

peace

you do what you want

with, or without, permission,

I won’t mind 

just remember:

I won’t go down without a fight

da da da dada

da da da dada

da da da dada da da da da…

just play your funky music

and keep on dancing

💞

AL 

(with a little inspiration from my friends) 

Listen to Serenity Fisher sing Rose Red

  

Posted in Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Choice, commitment, confidence, courage, determination, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Gratitude, Habits, Happiness, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, music, Passion, Poetry, power | Leave a comment

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