today is Pink’s Birthda! Alecia Beth Moore, known professionally as Pink, is an American singer, songwriter, dancer and actress. Noted for having “a strong signature voice and a literally acrobatic ability on stage,” Pink has sold over 135 million records worldwide. Happy birthday, Pink!
i am learning to be brave
i am learning to speak my own language
i am learning what i want to become
i am learning what kind of life i want to live
i am learning to stand in my place without flinching
i am learning to go my own way
i am learning not to help people who don’t want help
i am learning to embrace my powerful spirit
i am learning how to build my own bridges
complete with lions to guard against the foot-traffic
i am learning i have value to bring to those waiting to hear my voice
i am learning the intensity of my own burning passions
i am learning to keep digging in the murkiest of my own brokenness
i am learning to accept my imperfections as beautiful
i am learning to think in terms of unlimited possibilities
i am learning i will not always be understood in the way I intended
i am learning to apologize and then move freely forward
i am learning
and learning
and learning
new things
every minute
every day
i am a learning to be a part of the healing of the world
because i am willing to learn to be me
💞
Amy Lloyd (AL)
You must leave a lot behind
for your life to become whole.
What the Beloved lets go of
to have you!
If there were a hell
God would always be there
carrying people out.
There is a flock that is not well
without you.
When you think you’ve run away,
proud of your independence,
you’re really just lost.
You need each other.
All of life is God’s party
at having found you.
Or maybe, today, another.
Don’t be ashamed to be brought in
on the shepherd’s shoulders:
you got lost in the best possible way,
looking for God.
Remember each of the other ninety-nine
came the same way.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
listen to Love is My Religion
and before it can be begun
the wind whips the wisps of promise
out of our reaching hands
the hard ground dries the wettest seeds
the thorny earth strangles
the fragile thin ice easily breaking
plunges us under the dark icy water of yesterday’s pain
the sensitive places choke us
we allow old wounds to be reopened
by new innocents
replay
rewind
again and again
life is not always kind
love is not always given a chance to bloom
buds crushed early
unicorns are tricky
yeti never let themselves be fully seen
or photographed
quickly disappearing into the foggy forest
yes, truth is written by those in the know:
“it is ours to win or lose”
so, what will we choose?
to step in or duck out?
some people love to talk loud about the desire to win
then secretly, swiftly throw the game
and silently walk away
thinking they are playing life safe
fear is a brutal master
comfort-zones will kill us all
though we’ll keep
breathing for many years
trust is a deep quarry hidden within
the high walls of the castle
each kingdom must be won
the beast slain by our courageous spirit
removing the massive heads of the monsters
with the found sword of our personal truths
Envision holding those fearful grotesque trophies aloft!
Stepping into your full name!
Champion
Conquerer
Love always wins!
You must choose it!
You can do it,
were born that way!
Amy Lloyd (AL)
All my life, I thought of love as some kind of voluntary enslavement. Well, that’s a lie: freedom only exists when love is present. The person who gives him or herself wholly, the person who feels freest, is the person who loves most wholeheartedly.
― Paulo Coelho
Read that again:
All my life, I thought of love as some kind of voluntary enslavement. Well, that’s a lie: freedom only exists when love is present. The person who gives him or herself wholly, the person who feels freest, is the person who loves most wholeheartedly.
― Paulo Coelho
Earth our waitress
comes to the table in her rumpled apron
stained with a hundred juices.
“What will it be this morning?”
“Let’s start with some mist
in one of those green valleys,
and a cup of black loam with
a single tree frog.
Then fallen apples over easy
with extra worms,
a side of scattered leaves
in a caramelized sunbeam.”
“That comes with Summer’s last
abandoned bird’s nest salad.
Or soup of the day, fern bog
with skunk cabbage and blue
chanterelles.”
“I’ll take the soup,
a half carafe of Autumn rain,
and a cruller the shape
of a groundhog’s hole.”
She remembers your order by heart.
Old ones keep coming back to this place.
They bring grandchildren.
She knows what you love.
There’s a line to get in.
Sometimes it seems
we have to wait a year,
but its worth it.
🍃
Alfred K LaMotte
Packed in my mind lie all the clothes
Which outward nature wears,
And in its fashion’s hourly change
It all things else repairs.
In vain I look for change abroad,
And can no difference find,
Till some new ray of peace uncalled
Illumes my inmost mind.
What is it gilds the trees and clouds,
And paints the heavens so gay,
But yonder fast-abiding light
With its unchanging ray?
Lo, when the sun streams through the wood,
Upon a winter’s morn,
Where’er his silent beams intrude
The murky night is gone.
How could the patient pine have known
The morning breeze would come,
Or humble flowers anticipate
The insect’s noonday hum,—
Till the new light with morning cheer
From far streamed through the aisles,
And nimbly told the forest trees
For many stretching miles?
I’ve heard within my inmost soul
Such cheerful morning news,
In the horizon of my mind
Have seen such orient hues,
As in the twilight of the dawn,
When the first birds awake,
Are heard within some silent wood,
Where they the small twigs break,
Or in the eastern skies are seen,
Before the sun appears,
The harbingers of summer heats
Which from afar he bears.
🌞
The Inward Morning
Henry David Thoreau
Every night before I go to sleep
I say out loud
Three things that I’m grateful for,
All the significant, insignificant
Extraordinary, ordinary stuff of my life.
It’s a small practice and humble,
And yet, I find I sleep better
Holding what lightens and softens my life
Ever so briefly at the end of the day.
Sunlight, and blueberries,
Good dogs and wool socks,
A fine rain,
A good friend,
Fresh basil and wild phlox,
My father’s good health,
My daughter’s new job,
The song that always makes me cry,
Always at the same part,
No matter how many times I hear it.
Decent coffee at the airport,
And your quiet breathing,
The stories you told me,
The frost patterns on the windows,
English horns and banjos,
Wood Thrush and June bugs,
The smooth glassy calm of the morning pond,
An old coat,
A new poem,
My library card,
And that my car keeps running
Despite all the miles.
And after three things,
More often than not,
I get on a roll and I just keep on going,
I keep naming and listing,
Until I lie grinning,
Blankets pulled up to my chin,
Awash with wonder
At the sweetness of it all.
🤗
Three Gratitudes
BY CARRIE NEWCOMER
these two pictures are from Robin OK’s morning from Michigan. The rest are from my morning walk in Branford, CT with Phoebe Snow Good Times!
adding this below – just sent via text from my friend, Anni, currently in Scotland for her daughters wedding!!
and from my friend, Bill…this day just keeps giving…
and from the lunch table
Ask yourself
As you stand there
In the pale grey air
Frozen to these four walls
Feet turned to stone
Decide!
What is worth saving?
Can you will your hands
To grab the memories
You carry only in your heart
Can you pack your boxes full
With the laughter that rings in your ears
The clouds taunt you
Hurry!
There is no time left
Three red flags declare your fate
The defiance of your feet
The moan caught in your throat
Your hands still empty
🔥
This Does Not Belong To You by Salyna Gracie
http://womenspiritualpoetry.blogspot.com/2014/10/this-does-not-belong-to-you-by-salyna.html?m=1
At any given moment
we get to decide what we keep
and what we leave behind
what truly matters
what creates value for us
As my friend, Barbara McAfee, says,
“Who ya gonna be while you’re passing through?”
No one can answer that question for anyone else,
though many times we allow them to do so.
Sometimes it’s a radical loss
we have lost everything we have kept dear
all our treasures in this world
in fire, flood, loss of jobs, health,
bloody battles with power hungry ex’s,
even flukey things never expected.
These are our opportunities
when we only have ourselves left
and we burn as we adjust to this new space of being
the grieving takes us into different,
often difficult, spaces
where we get to (ok, have to) do a new thing
this is where life can reveal our best,
or worst,
because, it’s always our choice!
My wish for us is that
this becomes a beautiful foundation
to rebuild our new ships –
the latest and greatest in technological wonders –
the kind which will catch the best wind
to take us to the next adventure
for which we set sail!
Where our very lives become
our grandest home ever!
The best is always yet to be!
⛵️
Amy Lloyd (AL)
aka The Oracle of Hope & Happiness
When there has been too much pain, we often forget that we have the built-in capacity to move through it to another state. The Divine gave us tears to be cried, the capacity to express our anger, a vast range of emotional devices that, when healthily unleashed and expressed, can clear the toxicity out of us, and lead us to lessons of self-love at the heart of them. In our authentic vulnerability lies our greatest power—the power to re open our hearts after loss and disappointment. The idea that feeling the pain gives power to those who have hurt us is completely wrong. Feeling the pain is an act of self-empowerment and the only way to make a break from the prison of repressed emotions. Reach inside and unlock the door…
– Jeff Brown
It was a long time ago.
I have almost forgotten my dream.
But it was there then,
In front of me,
Bright like a sun-
My dream.
And then the wall rose,
Rose slowly,
Slowly,
Between me and my dream.
Rose until it touched the sky-
The wall.
Shadow.
I am black.
I lie down in the shadow.
No longer the light of my dream before me,
Above me.
Only the thick wall.
Only the shadow.
My hands!
My dark hands!
Break through the wall!
Find my dream!
Help me to shatter this darkness,
To smash this night,
To break this shadow
Into a thousand lights of sun,
Into a thousand whirling dreams
Of sun!
—
As I Grew Older by Langston Hughes
It’s a story as old as time itself
Girl meets boy
There they go
Falling in love
It’s an ending no tale wants to tell
Girl and boy
Drifting farther
And farther apart
Now she lives in the house of broken dreams
pictures fade
Time stands still
All the shadows standing in their places
Cracks appear
Clock feebly striking on through the gloom
As the tears fall down her face
It’s all just the way it all was then
Just the same as the day when life broke
30 years ago
although lots of things have gathered
into every available surface and corner
Dust falls down
Settling on fading glitter
Grime on glass
Fogging up the window panes
mold grows free
covering years of freeform piles
She still smiles that painted smile
You can’t see the lonely spaces
when you meet her on the street
Life moves on and on without her
It’s illusion that you see
Because she lives in the house of broken dreams
pictures fade
Time stands still
All the shadows standing in their places
Cracks appear
Clock strikes weakly at each hour
As the tears fall down her face
It’s the ending no reader wants to read
Girl and boy
Drifting farther
And farther apart
until he leaves
and she fights
to get something she can keep forever
as she always dreamed it would be
Never letting go
Never moving on
It’s the hardest part
Nobody wants to read this ending
This extreme dirty secret behind estate gates
stone lions eternally guarding
heartbreak frozen in time
hoarding only she can stop
💨
Amy Lloyd (AL)
If you have a dream, don’t just sit there. Gather courage to believe that you can succeed and leave no stone unturned to make it a reality.
– Roopleen
“I have a firm belief in this now, not only in terms of my own experience, but in knowing the experiences of other people. When you follow your bliss, and by bliss I mean the deep sense of being in it, and doing what the push is out of your own existence—it may not be fun, but it’s your bliss and there’s bliss behind pain too.
“You follow that and doors will open where there were no doors before, where you would not have thought there’d be doors, and where there wouldn’t be a door for anybody else.
“. . . And so I think the best thing I can say is to follow your bliss. If your bliss is just your fun and your excitement, you’re on the wrong track. I mean, you need instruction. Know where your bliss is. And that involves coming down to a deep place in yourself.”
Joseph Campbell, “The Hero’s Journey”
The true inner self
must be drawn up
like a jewel from
the bottom of the sea,
rescued from confusion,
from indistinction,
from immersion
in the common,
the nondescript,
the trivial,
the sordid,
the evanescent.
-Thomas Merton
Seed of Contemplation
words silently spoken
from the other room
words fitly
uttered aloud
in due time
silent revelry
of the heart
surrendered
to defeat
successful in distraction
sidetracked by our addictions of choice
too brilliant to be truly seen
waiting to die
too damaged to brave transparency
too convinced that ‘nothing can be done’ to brave self responsibility
too comfortable to say no to that monster keeping us chained to the weakest parts of ourselves
the bullsh** of wasted lives
the emptiness of wasting time
the cruel decisions of men drowning
the hopes of the weak trampled
the tragedy of the parental misguidance
ingrained foundations
the travesty of religion
gone wrong
it happens so often
doctrine and old false belief systems
becoming the
masters of deceit filled lives
rather than the servant
of love
oh soul arise and fight
break up the hallowed ground of the falsified truth
oh, my friend, take back your life
open the beautiful box
of your most vulnerable, passionate essence
the pope will never take your case
your parents will never grant permission
but then again,
why would you want them too?
This is your life!
Only you can stand for what is given you
take that buried coffin
out of the ground
plant a seed or two inside
No one else can do it for you
or take it away from you
just you
you can never be too sensitive
you already know the real truth
celebrate yourself
flaunt your true colors
they’re so very beautiful
remember to remember
only love is real
💞
Amy Lloyd (AL)
Help Me
As they’re used psychologically, words like repression, denial, sublimation, and defense all refer to one form or another of the way human beings erect walls to hide behind, both from each other and from themselves. You repress the memory that is too painful to deal with, say. You deny your weight problem. You sublimate some of your sexual energy by channeling it into other forms of activity more socially acceptable. You conceal your sense of inadequacy behind a defensive bravado. And so on and so forth. The inner state you end up with is a castle-like affair of keep, inner wall, outer wall, and moat, which you erect originally to be a fortress to keep the enemy out, but which turns into a prison where you become the jailer and thus your own enemy. It is a wretched and lonely place. You can’t be what you want to be there or do what you want to do. People can’t see through all that masonry to who you truly are, and half the time you’re not sure you can see who you truly are yourself, you’ve been walled up so long.
Fortunately there are two words that offer a way out, and they’re simply these: “Help me.” It’s not always easy to say them-you have your pride after all, and you’re not sure there’s anybody you trust enough to say them to-but they’re always worth saying. To another human being-a friend, a stranger? To God? Maybe it comes to the same thing.
Help me. They open a door through the walls, that’s all. At least hope is possible again. At least you’re no longer alone.
~ Frederick Buechner
originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words
Living systems never really settle down.
– John Holland
We were only to sleep for a short while.
Words stuck in thick layers , they are there and then they are gone …and the fire burns day and night…like some drift wood set a blaze on a lonely hill.
Not many know the fire…not many know the Way…
but that fire keeps setting the sun to blaze; Spirit beats within the body and pages are blank…
It is everything, and it is nothing.
Spirit empties one to naked longing, then traps the soul in a loving embrace.
Vowed to live it’s days on earth, as it is in heaven…
Soul , human body with mystery and mayhem…
With preoccupation with the Holy; with adoration won…with words that ache to be heard but have no expression in this realm…
Veil once torn…eye filled with Light…
Worlds riding within worlds…glances, witness, wonders.
The madness that comes, when you know God,
Come back on a black horse, for the fire will chase all the others away.
Ride like the wind, knowing nothing at all….and living the Fire.
Beauty,
Donna Knutson
Above the ground after a brief silence
they resume their war
before they are even out of the graveyard,
climbing over each other
trying to save their own lives,
clawing at some unseen soil above them,
while beneath he rests in peace,
where, after all, we each long to be,
borne to our resting ground,
cherished and at peace,
soon and very soon.
Could I slip beneath the grass
of my battlefields and travel there?
Can I find a way to live
without that combat,
rest without that death,
to grant to the wicked
the eternal peace of the living?
God, bury me
beneath the feet of my anxieties.
Let them go on without me, arguing.
Let me be a ghost of grace,
untroubled, unbound,
interred in love.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
all day long
the music inside me
walks me through
every day the song-lists play
weaving themselves into the world
around my going
just yesterday
you created new symphonic occurrences
to be forever included
in my smile
my senses refined by the touch of you
the wind gently touching my face
with delicate fingers
my sweat soaked body
reminds me of that deep burning fire
life plays on and on
with me for this very moment
right here
right now
part of the harmony
a single black, dotted note
creating my little piece
of the grand composition
the masterpiece would be completely different
without me
without you
🎶
Amy Lloyd (AL)
One of the greatest mistakes we make in this life, I think, is losing hope when we don’t get what we want RIGHT AWAY. It takes time to do anything that matters—to change, to learn to love, to build a business or grow a child or grow into ourselves.
—
Sadly, too many of us (myself included) lose heart when we don’t see results RIGHT THIS MINUTE.
—
And when we lose hope, we lose everything.
—
Hope is not this fluffy thing we sometimes think it is. Hope is dangerous. It’s radical. When we hope, we take a tremendous risk, waiting and waking our hearts to something that we know full well may never come to fruition. There are no guarantees in this life. We do not have 100% control.
—
Hope hurts. If it doesn’t hurt, it isn’t hope.
—
And yet I am learning what it means to take LONG view. As I look back over the past 33 years of my life, I realize most of the things I have hoped for have taken DECADES to grow into themselves. It takes a LONG, LONG TIME for things to make sense.
—
Hope trusts the process—that even if we don’t get the thing we want right away, the story is not over. It’s not completely written.
—
Hope is steadfast and unwavering. It keeps going and gong and going.
—
Whatever you’re waiting for, hoping for, wishing for, don’t give up. Keep hoping. Most things don’t make sense until later. Hope is your lifeline. It is your only way home.
🏡
Allison Fallon
The rising moon has hid the stars;
Her level rays,
like golden bars,
Lie on the landscape green,
With shadows brown between.
And silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams,
Had dropt her silver bow
Upon the meadows low.
On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
When, sleeping in the grove,
He dreamed not of her love.
Like Dian’s kiss,
unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
Her voice, nor sound betrays
Its deep, impassioned gaze.
It comes,
—the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,—
In silence and alone
To seek the elected one.
It lifts the boughs,
whose shadows deep,
Are Life’s oblivion, the soul’s sleep,
And kisses the closed eyes
Of him, who slumbering lies.
O, weary hearts! O, slumbering eyes!
O, drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again!
No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.
Responds,
—as if with unseen wings,
A breath from heaven had touched its strings
And whispers, in its song,
“Where hast though stayed so long!”
😍
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I’ll always want to drive with you.
I’ll always want to trace
all the corners of the world
with my own bare hands.
We’ll whirl by the exits like flight.
Like wind.
Two birds collecting stories.
Breaking all cages.
Chasing our whims.
Maybe we could leave tonight
without falling far behind
we’ll shed our pain and armor
and be in this music,
these dreams,
these roads.
Yours and mine.
We’ll find the center
of everything
and we will ride.
We’ll just drive.
🚘
by Victoria Erickson, Writer
life: acoustic & amplified 
