awareness | life: acoustic & amplified

Archive for the category “awareness”

28 Jul 2016

be strong & be courageous

I am heavy

Stepping with sand bag feet

Slow

Hello life

In this dark day

I look for beauty

It’s always there

I wonder if I would have jumped or gone back to die

If I had really known how hard it would be

On and on

Do I really believe it will ever get better?

No answer comes

I move away from the question

I made my choice

I go curl up

In the Legacy Garden

On the round plaque with Wendell Berry’s words of understanding

I part the out thrusting branches

And come in beneath the blessed and the blessing trees.

Though I am silent

There is singing around me.

Though I am dark

There is vision around me.

Though I am heavy

There is flight around me.

– Wendell Berry
Underneath the gondola’s painted ever-green leaves –

I wish there was a raven

Who cares if people see me?

🌑

AL – 12/3/12

I fell down,

Broken

Down beneath the curtain of a world that wasn’t mine
I fell down,

Hurting

Down under the pressure of a life I couldn’t find
Watching

Others

There were times that I felt nothing but the pain of being me
Watching

Wondering

Why and how and when would I be able to be free
I tried

Hiding

Nothing kept the darkness from surrounding me with grief
I tried

Crying

But nothing kept the demons that were haunting me
The fear

The aching

The desperation etched upon my heart in every beat
The scars

Appearing

Like a chain around my soul, stealing all I used to be
I sought comfort

I sought courage

I sought loving in the hands of those that only caused me pain

I sought refuge

I sought freedom

I sought counsel in the places that left me filled with guilt and shame
I fell down,

Broken

Down beneath the curtain of a world that wasn’t mine
I fell down,

Hurting

Down under the pressure of a life I couldn’t find
Then it came

The flicker

Of hope and understanding that I could be alive again
Then it came

A glimmer

The ember of the flame inside my heart began to shine
Watching

Others

I looked inside their minds and saw that I was not the only one
Watching

Wondering

How I could share the message that all of us are one
I tried

Learning

Taking all the knowledge that the world gave unto me
I tried

Doing

And realized the healing came from giving all I had to give
The love

Replaced fear

My heart beats now for others and keeps me going on and on
The scars

On show now

Proving that with courage our soul can set us free
I give comfort

I give courage

I give loving to the ones of those that are only feeling pain

I give refuge

I give freedom

I give counsel to those needing me with kindness, without blame
I fell down

Humble

Down to show my gratitude for living life this way
I fell down

Thankful

Vowing to show others life is better every day

💔🔥❤️

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A remembering

December 3, 2012

a lifetime from then to now

Hello Life

echoing in the chambers

of empty shattered walls

of broken will

and weary traveling

worn and scarred

soldier of God

warrior of the light

no longer even able

to pretend to carry the cross

just laying on it

too tired to fight

with arms willingly outstretched

scorched and branded

by Your glory

carried into the ocean

of Your love

within the arc

of silence

knowing I am

undone

by ruthless grace

my life is Yours

and now I wait

for You

to part the waters

like only You can do

I burned to ash

completely consumed

now I rise

the flame

alive

🔥

Beneath the shouting,

quieter and more steady,

listen for my voice.

Be still, and listen.

You are doing a difficult thing.

And I am with you.

I have gathered up your life,

your triumphs and failures,

your powers and your weaknesses,

and I hold it all in grace.

You have died,

and your life is hidden in me now.

I bear your grief,

the river of it flows through me,

and I am the spring it comes from.

When you are alone I am the body

that weaves you with everyone.

When you are discouraged

I bind your hope to you.

When you are weary

I am your strength and breath,

the life that carries you.

When the road is rough and long

I go onward,

and bear you in my love and wisdom.

Keep your mind on this.

Forget the little things.

Remember my presence.

Forget whatever you can cling to.

Remember I hold you.

Never mind the demons and discouragements.

You are in me

and it is I who walk through this world

with you hidden deep within me.
__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

Posted in Alone, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, courage, dark, Death, find art at pinterest, Letting Go, Life, Losing, Love | Leave a comment

28 Jul 2016

Let us go forward quietly, forever making for the light… Vincent van Gogh

Let us go forward quietly, forever making for the light, and lifting up our hearts in the knowledge that we are as others are (and that others are as we are), and that it is right to love one another in the best possible way – believing all things, hoping for all things, and enduring all things.…And let us not be too troubled by our weaknesses, for even he who has none, has one weakness, namely that he thinks he has none, and anyone who believes himself to be so perfect or wise would do well to become foolish all over again.

✍🏻

Vincent van Gogh

There is always that edge of doubt.

Trust it, that’s where the new things come from.

If you can’t live with it, get out,

Because when it’s gone, you’re on Automatic,

Repeating something you’ve learned.

Let your prayer be:

Save me from that tempting certainty that

Leads me back from the Edge,

That dark edge where the first light breaks.

✨

The Edge of Doubt by Albert Huffstickler

Thing on my art table…

Chopsticks from Korea House – Jana

Seed from ASG Intensive – Patti

Tea light from Retreat 2012 – Robin

Blue twistie light from Andy n Brandi’s wedding

Paint brushes from Kacie’s old art box

Small souvenir dish from Italy and a pumpkin Anni gifts

along side Faith-Trumps-Fear dogtag

tiny flower pots that just make me happy

One of Pearl’s rocks with a natural cross

Big Purple stone from Bernice’s apartment

Inspirational box I bought in Connecticut

Small leather journal part of art supply shopping trip Chris bought me

Pens, paints, markers, pencils

Books – as many as possible

Journals, Bible, sketch pads

Tweezers – always tweezers

Computer

My framed arts-ing

Other things as well

each small thing connected to someone,

some place.

I am surrounded by what I love,

Who I love,

What I live.

I keep pieces of myself

of moments,

the people, I love.

and I build my days

with bricks, blocks, shells and sparkly rocks

layers of a life

built on grace and gratitude

a firm foundation

which will not be shaken.

🐚

21 different ways to do art therapy and put your thoughts in order

Posted by The Minds Journal EditoriaL| A Better Living, Interesting, The Journal | 16 |

Sometimes, the solution to your problem just won’t come into your head, yet your thoughts are spinning at a 100 kilometers an hour, and you feel like your brain is going to explode.

It’s times like this that you could do with trying some ’art therapy’. At its most basic, the only preparation you need to carry out for this is to grab a pencil and a sheet of paper. Then, just start drawing. It doesn’t even matter what you draw. Within a certain amount of time, your thoughts will become more harmonious and you’ll calm down.

To help you get started, here’s what to do if you’re feeling…

* Tired: draw flowers

* Angry: draw lines

* In pain: build a model

* Bored: color in a sheet of paper in various colors

* Sad: paint a rainbow

* Scared: knit something

* Worried: make a doll

* Indignant: tear a piece of paper into small pieces and arrange it into a pattern

* Anxious: do some origami

* Tense: draw patterns

* Nostalgic: draw a maze

* Disappointed: copy a portrait or painting

* In despair: draw your way out

* Confused: draw an Indian mandala

* That you need to restore your strength: make a landscape painting

* That you can’t make sense of your feelings: paint a self-portrait

* That you need to remember this moment: draw some colored patterns

* That you need to put your thoughts in order: draw honeycombs or squares

* That you need to take the time to make the right choice: draw waves and circles

* That you’re stuck in a rut: draw spirals

* That you need to make sense of your most important goal: draw target symbols.

21 Different Art Therapy Exercises For Different Emotions

All my feelings have the colors you desire to paint. – Rumi

💥

I feel the blues and greens today

I experiment with running colors together

I love the oranges and yellows

They make me happy

My words are few today

Faith

Love

Life

Fly

A few more I repeat

I experiment with brushes

I play with squares of paper

These colors are poured out definitely sharing my emotions

I design things in my head

At the end of this day

I have created something good

for my soul

doesn’t matter how great it is…

I am an artist

I must create

🌟

photo sources found at pinterest.com

Posted in art, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Choice, connection, create, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Life, Miracles, Passion, soul and spirit, Trust, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

27 Jul 2016

quest for that shade of blue

When the light lessens,

Causing colors to lose their courage,

And your eyes fix on the empty distance

That can open on either side

Of the surest line

To make all that is

Familiar and near

Seem suddenly foreign,
When the music of talk

Breaks apart into noise

And you hear your heart louden

While the voices around you

Slow down to leaden echoes

Turning the silence Into something stony and cold,
When the old ghosts come back

To feed on everywhere you felt sure,

Do not strengthen their hunger

By choosing to fear;

Rather, decide to call on your heart

That it may grow clear and free

To welcome home your emptiness

That it may cleanse you

Like the clearest air

You could ever breathe.
Allow your loneliness time

To dissolve the shell of dross

That had closed around you;

Choose in this severe silence

To hear the one true voice

Your rushed life fears;

Cradle yourself like a child

Learning to trust what emerges,

So that gradually

You may come to know
That deep in that black hole

You will find the blue flower

That holds the mystical light

Which will illuminate in you

The glimmer of springtime.

💙

A Blessing for Loneliness by John O’Donohue

Alone and lost

at the edge

of an ocean

of memories,
a heart of the deepest blue

beats

to the slow monotony

of a swaying metronome;
found in the crashing waves

of a dark desolate shore.

The weeping wind,

with its hidden whispers,

murmurs her name;
as nights they walked

hand in hand
flashback into view.
Haunting the torn fabric of his soul.

💔

Shipwrecked heart by AllPoetry member, Halosonthemoon

read the rest here: http://ow.ly/eO4E302oGFH

when I ride the nights ragged hours

when my loneliness rages with ruthless, restless, too warm turning

when heaven is that smudge of light

seen beside the farthest star

when sleep is torn from my hungry grasp

and I am left without an inch of satisfaction

from the feathers beneath my head

when I open my eyes to the same shade of black

I see with them closed

then I feel the disappearance of my desire to conform

my self is borderless at 3 am

my pretensions dissolve into this dark

I surrender to my grief

as well as to my hope

I swim to the other end of the bed

to cooler pastures

I visit the sheep

living among the stuff

down there

I listen as they recited the 23rd Psalm

to reassure my nervous entering

in that strange world

I hear all the sounds from this new dimension

my mind takes on the shape of new perspective

alert to this unusual adventure

I cry a little

laugh a little

think about the glory of love

the world turns on its axis

I breath free

I fly home

💞

I am a sheep

and I like it

because the grass

I lie down in

feels good and the still

waters are restful and right

there if I’m thirsty

and though some valleys

are very chilly there is a long

rod that prods me so I

direct my hooves

the right way

though today

I’m trying hard

to sit at a table

because it’s expected

required really

and my enemies—

it turns out I have enemies—

are watching me eat and

spill my drink

but I don’t worry because

all my enemies do

is watch and I know

I’m safe if I will

just do my best

as I sit on this chair

that wobbles a bit

in the grass

on the side of a hill.

🐏

Here In The Psalm by Sally Fisher

Your great mistake is to act the drama

as if you were alone. As if life

were a progressive and cunning crime

with no witness to the tiny hidden

transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny

the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,

even you, at times, have felt the grand array;

the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding

out your solo voice You must note

the way the soap dish enables you,

or the window latch grants you freedom.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

The stairs are your mentor of things

to come, the doors have always been there

to frighten you and invite you,

and the tiny speaker in the phone

is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into

the conversation. The kettle is singing

even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

have left their arrogant aloofness and

seen the good in you at last. All the birds

and creatures of the world are unutterably

themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

🌎

Everything is Waiting for You by David Whyte

from Everything is Waiting for You

photo sources found at pinterest.com

Posted in Adventure, Alone, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, beloved, Change, Choice, connection, courage, dark, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, grace, Gratitude, healing, laugh, Letting Go, Life, Lonely, Love, Relationships, soul and spirit, Trust, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

27 Jul 2016

when I touch your face I touch the face of God

our identity actually depends on the attention we give to things outside of ourselves

(David Whyte via On Being)

It is so difficult to see this face *

because the countless others

we’ve seen before

cloud the view,

along with how we expect it to look

and how it might be improved.
Even the faces of the ones we love deeply

hide like buried treasure

behind histories of expression.
In order to see

what is right in front of our eyes,

we first have to recognize

we have gradually

become blind,

and then begin

the slow work of forgetting.

* Substitute with any noun: flower, beach, stone, bird, soap bubble, house, grandmother, beef stew, homeless person, celebrity, potato, dollar bill, construction worker, politician, drug addict, child, teacher, report card, mail order catalogue, boss, swimming pool, dog, towel, onion, computer, neighbor, planet, pine cone, cigarette, airplane, spam subject, fork, mountain, etc.

🍴

Recognition by Daron Larson

You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot — it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.

☺️

– Maya Angelou

Me myself

Trippers and askers surround me, People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation.

The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new…

These come to me days and nights and go from me again. But they are not the Me myself.

– Walt Whitman from Song of Myself

I long to see your face

to touch the hills of your nose

your cheeks

the valleys where your eyes live

your forehead, I don’t know well enough

the crease of your chin

under your lips

your face is the place

where your soul

meets the world,

met mine

your breath

allows us to mingle

melting into each other’s dna

I miss your conversation

I miss our laughter

I miss your company

I miss your hands

mostly I miss seeing your face

with these eyes of mine

😍

I think your whole life shows in your face and we should be proud of that.

– Lauren Bacall

look at your hands

your beautiful useful hands

you’re not an ape

you’re not a parrot

you’re not a slow loris

or a smart missile

you’re human
not british

not american

not israeli

not palestinian

you’re human
not catholic

not protestant

not muslim

not hindu

you’re human
we all start human

we end up human

human first

human last

we’re human

or we’re nothing
nothing but bombs

and poison gas

nothing but guns

and torturers

nothing but slaves

of Greed and War

if we’re not human
look at your body

with its amazing systems

of nerve-wires and blood canals

think about your mind

which can think about itself

and the whole universe

look at your face

which can freeze into horror

or melt into love

look at all that life

all that beauty

you’re human

they are human

we are human

let’s try to be human
dance!

💃🏻

Human Beings by Adrian Mitchell

Posted in art, attitude, awareness, beauty, beloved, Choice, connection, find art at pinterest, friendship, Grieving, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, Passion, People, Relationships, soul and spirit, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

26 Jul 2016

so thug

A bold and sustained outbreak of gentleness

We believe in the God of grace.

We follow the Teacher of Love.

We live by the Spirit of mercy.

We trust God’s healing of the world.
When people spread fear and division,

when evil, injustice and oppression thrive,

no political revolution, program or platform will save us,

but only a people transformed by grace and light,

and a bold and sustained outbreak of gentleness.
We will stand up to cynicism, hate and indifference,

and blanket this world with compassion, calm and mercy.

We will proclaim the truth against all resistance.

We will meet fear and hate with healing.

We will obstruct the progress of injustice

with our prayers, our words and our bodies.

We will infest the world with grace and love.
We pray for open hearts and a spirit of deep listening.

We pray for courage to enter the wounds of the world;

for a spirit of peace to face violence with nonviolence;

for patience to answer darkness with light.

We pray for humility to offer ourselves

as the first to be changed.

We pray for one another, for we are one Body.

We devote ourselves to sacrifice and discipline.
Giving thanks for the great spirit of grace

already breathing in us, already rising,

in hope and love, as the gentle people of God,

we go forth.

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

with wings
rough hands
feet on bare earth
I want to become a continent of angels
some common rarity so unexplored
unadmissable
that even I cannot find where I begin or end
.
let this body become a borderless land
full of immigrants
artist and poets
whose only claim to fame is that
they rushed to join this conflagration of
unbound unexplored unknowable art
to enter full existence
.
who is to say what is real
in a universe so wide
and blasted unpretentious
let us join this revolution
wild eyes full hearted
as if this day
is the only day the universe will ever exist
and yes you matter
.
come with me
join asunder
this world is fully ablaze
and yet none of us burn
like a kernel in the heart of the sun
.
now I have come to understand
the language of infinity
it is in the way you dress and speak
and hurry along caressing the earth
and me with it
some vision of your standard uranium golden globe reeking sun
the perfect curve with no edge

———–
Adam A DeFranco (c) 2016

I am always amazed at the layers,

the levels, of the human experience.

The never ending,

ever-evolving, devolving,

shifting, opening,

illumination, illusion-revealing,

conviction shattering, my gospel truth challenging,

deep calling to deep, border breaking,

darkness, light and color discovering, re-discovering.
This way of living I have stumbled onto – into –

not because I’m so smart –

but because I asked,

I was given this priceless gift.

This surprising path

of a pilgrim,

of spiritual growth,

baby stepping my way to

healing, learning,

opening, Mystery,

more always reveals more.

Always re-defining the definitions

of love, abundance,

grace, healing,

truth, error,

good, evil,

joy, suffering,

prosperity, poverty,

spirit, spirituality,

life itself becoming more with each step.

My self righteousness becoming less important

with every glimpse of my Creator, my own Belovedness.

Sometimes I understand how Peter must have felt when he saw the great sheet of unclean animals come down before him,

which God asked him to kill and eat,

He challenged with those same words I have heard from heaven –

“What I have named clean do not proclaim unclean.”

Challenging, very challenging, stuff.

The stuff of humility and opening,

the stuff of learning.

Life changing/giving stuff.

We want to think we know, that we are right.

We want approval, to be able to judge.

We want to earn our way, be worthy.

It will never work. Thankfully.

Then we catch the tiniest of glimpses of the Lover

and we fall on our knees,

breathless, undone,

aware of our need, our misplaced vanity,

stripped of our pride, our shoes,

amazed by what we have encountered, changed forever.

full but ever thirsty for more –
LOVE

💞

I’m convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they’re stones that don’t matter. As long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late to do some good.

💞

— Maya Angelou

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, commitment, community, connection, courage, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Leadership, Letting Go, Life, Love, Passion, politics | Leave a comment

25 Jul 2016

growing wild

Dark and early in your story someone fearful

of your inborn glory took it

and buried it behind your house,

and you, innocently, and wise to save yourself

from their greater wrath,

believed its absence.

It’s not a pompous glory,

insistent on regard, but sure and quiet

as a wildflower’s, asking nothing.

And so you’ve lived—so have we all—

without it, your heart shoveled over

with self-doubt and apology, as if

you have no place or voice here

among angels.

We see you in the cripples who flocked

to Jesus, the mute, the paralyzed,

bent over, shut out, gone mad.

And all he meant to say was this:

you shine. You bring a gift

as no one else, and you belong.

Your Word deserves a hearing,

and this world needs your beauty

and your grace. There is no rank

you fall below, no worth you fail to match.

Your shuttering was evil, and God

wants it undone, and wants you whole.

And so she takes you by the hand

and raises you to stand, to walk, to speak.

She listens to your song with joy.

She rains upon the earth

until you are unafraid of your radiance

and all our houses are surrounded by wildflowers.

______________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

Wildflowers grow without

discipline,

rooted in the secret order

of quietness.

Edges get rounded down.

Nature offers no straight lines

or right angles.

Wouldn’t you rather run your

fingers through black loam

than scroll through golden rules?

What you really seek

is the fragrance of chaos,

like a moth on a purple aster,

the intimate fragility

of mountain meadows.

Surrender first.

Strip off the armor

of Should.

Then fight your valiant battle

for beauty.

___________
Alfred K. LaMotte

…

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow:

they do not toil or spin.

~Matthew 6:28

Do you suppose she’s a wild flower?

Dancing light and free

Do you suppose she’s a wildflower?

As we all wish to be

Let yourself go

be drawn to what you love

– Rumi

God made black sheep and dandelions

God said they were good

God made your heart sweet

He sees you cryin’

Oh now can’t you see

God made you and me

just like every star

to shine just as we are
there’s a garden many know

pretty maids all in a row

looking all they same are they

mother, may I? they do say
some folks see wishes

some folks see weeds

some folks see diamonds

whiles stones others see

some folks don’t get me

as I need to be

I am a wildflower

dancing so free
God made black sheep and dandelions

God said they were good

God made your heart sweet

He sees you cryin’

Oh now can’t you see

God made you and me

just like every star

to shine just as we are
there’s a sky above we see

stars come out to play at night

they don’t ask what they can be

they shine their light for all to see
some folks see storms clouds

some folks see rains

some folks see nightmares

whiles dreams others see

some folks don’t get me

as I need to be

I am a star child

twinkling so free
God made black sheep and dandelions

God said they were good

God made your heart sweet

He sees you cryin’

Oh now can’t you see

God made you and me

just like every star

to shine just as we are

💫

buy this goodness!

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, Dancing, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, fun, Growth, healing, Impossible, inspiration, intimacy, Joy, Letting Go, Life, Love, nature | Leave a comment

23 Jul 2016

what not to say…just bring french chocolates

“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 well watered

it blooms within me

true voice does not come without cost

Yet it comes

I choose

I let go

I choose

I lament

I chose

I grieve

I choose

I love

I choose

I commune

I choose

I learn

I choose

always choosing

new choosing in every moment

to continue to make the choices

which will bring the song

that fills the whole world

with hope, light and love

Thanks be

to the the friends who stay with me

in silence we weep

in joy we laugh

always and always

we sing

🎼

love breaks your heart for the sake of your heart…

If you have your health, you have everything

is something that’s said to cheer you up

when you come home early and find your lover

arched over a stranger in a scarlet thong.

Or it could be you lose your job at Happy Nails

because you can’t stop smudging the stars

on those ten teeny American flags.

I don’t begrudge you your extravagant vitality.

May it blossom like a cherry tree. May the petals

of your cardiovascular excellence

and the accordion polka of your lungs

sweeten the mornings of your loneliness.

But for the ill, for you with nerves that fire

like a rusted-out burner on an old barbecue,

with bones brittle as spun sugar,

with a migraine hammering like a blacksmith

in the flaming forge of your skull,

may you be spared from friends who say,

God doesn’t give you more than you can handle

and ask what gifts being sick has brought you.

May they just keep their mouths shut

and give you French chocolates and daffodils

and maybe a small, original Matisse,

say, Open Window, Collioure, so you can look out

at the boats floating on the dappled pink water.

🏝

French Chocolates by Ellen Bass

The Beloved says:

Be at peace;

I am the strongest thing in you.

Over your dark, formless waters I brood;

in your void I speak my Word.

You are my river and I am your flowing;

you are my water and I am your sea.

I am the spark from nerve to nerve;

the drumming of your heart.

I am your blood’s dark alchemy

creating life, this moment, life.

In the night I am your nest;

in the storm, your steadfast earth.

In the raging waters I am your breath;

in your death I am your life.

I am the First thing in you,

and I will be in you

when the rest of you is gone.

When your bones are shadows

and your sinews wind

a hundred years from now

I will still be in your place,

rejoicing.

Nothing is deeper than my desire for you;

nor stronger than your belonging in me.

I am your Realm, and your power, and your glory.

Be at peace.
__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

4 year anniversary of living faith following the cloud. Allowing God to direct every step I have taken…been an amazing, wonderful, difficult, miracle-strewn time. So grateful for every miracle minute.

Big changes seem to be coming. Walk with me. Pray for me. 🙏🏻 So grateful for you.

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, big, Change, Choice, courage, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, friendship, Gratitude, Grieving, healing, home, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, Peace, People, Relationships, risk, soul and spirit, transformation, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

22 Jul 2016

blank space

Today I find myself empty

Empty of words

Empty of color

Empty of strength

Empty of grief

Empty of empathy

Empty of ability

Empty of thoughts even

I’ve been here many times

I understand it better now

I will allow

I will rest

rest from thought

rest from guilt

rest from wanting

rest from expecting

rest from having to

rest from desire

I rest in my truth

rest in faith

rest in trust

rest in love

rest in what I believe

rest in what I have experienced

I will just be

stay open

stay present

stay here now

in wordless prayer –

Allowing the emptiness to be

Today I am empty

and it is

well with my soul.

💭

Writing about empty mind is not easy.

When I have got it, there are no words.

When the words come, it goes away.
Sitting in anger and fear,

Mind is full of the past and future.

Images of catastrophes big and small

Jostle for a seat at the brain.

Resentment, incredulity and disappointment

Slide their way into heart spaces

Pushing out loving-kindness.

Equanimity lies in pieces.
Some of us scrape up that slimy

Emotional stuff and put it in jars

To carry along with us,

And then we complain that

Our load is too heavy.

We need to put down that

Lumpy sack of ooze

And take a breath.
The sage said,

“I pack no provisions for my long journey—

Entering emptiness under the midnight moon.”

He did not pack his ego,

Or his remembrance of self.

He carried no big plans

Or regrets of the past.

Like a wise fool he may have

Even forgotten to leave.

While he sits still in darkness,

The moon travels the sky.

🗯

Empty Mind by Tom Barrett

I have a small vial of clay

that used to hold my father’s ashes.

They’re on a hillside in Montana now;

the vial is clean and empty,

ready for me.
I should keep it in my pocket,

hold it deep in the folds of my coat,

until I am folded into my little vial of clay.
It asks me, what is the difference

between you and clay?

The answer is water.

That, and love.
The little vial of clay says daily:

drink water while you can,

and love.

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

There is a community of the spirit.

Join it, and feel the delight

of walking in the noisy street

and being the noise.
Drink all your passion,

and be a disgrace.
Close both eyes

to see with the other eye.
Open your hands,

if you want to be held.
Sit down in this circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel

the shepherd’s love filling you.
At night, your beloved wanders.

Don’t accept consolations.
Close your mouth against food.

Taste the lover’s mouth in yours.
You moan, “She left me.” “He left me.”

Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying.

Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison

when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.

Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always

widening rings of being.

🎴

A Community of the Spirit by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.
– Rumi

Posted in Alone, attitude, awareness, be, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Choice, connection, courage, emotions, Freedom, Gratitude, Grieving, healing, Letting Go, Love, mystery, Patience, Peace, Poetry, quiet, risk, soul and spirit, strength, transformation, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

21 Jul 2016

bits and pieces

I gave myself permission to feel and experience all of my emotions. In order to do that, I had to stop being afraid to feel. In order to do that, I taught myself to believe that no matter what I felt or what happened when I felt it, I would be okay. – Iyanla Vanzant

I have walked through many lives,

some of them my own,

and I am not who I was,

though some principle of being

abides, from which I struggle

not to stray.

When I look behind,

as I am compelled to look

before I can gather strength

to proceed on my journey,

I see the milestones dwindling

toward the horizon

and the slow fires trailing

from the abandoned camp-sites,

over which scavenger angels

wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe

out of my true affections,

and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled

to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind

the manic dust of my friends,

those who fell along the way,

bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn,

exulting somewhat,

with my will intact to go

wherever I need to go,

and every stone on the road

precious to me.

In my darkest night,

when the moon was covered

and I roamed through wreckage,

a nimbus-clouded voice

directed me:

“Live in the layers,

not on the litter.”

Though I lack the art

to decipher it,

no doubt the next chapter

in my book of transformations

is already written.

📝

The Layers by Stanley Kunitz

there are people and places

which live inside me

I feel them

as I spin the kaleidoscope wheel

they come into focus

moments

smells

textures

visuals

each hold exquisite love

each hold delicately intense, brutal, suffering

each hold ruthless trust,

radical hope,

extreme faith,

continual healing.

each person,

each place a threshold

of practical practice,

of growth and becoming,

of wrestling with letting go,

of spiritual teaching towards love,

of defending my tenderness,

of stepping into ‘I am’,

of allowing myself,

of removing the toxic tarter buildup of my own soul,

of seeing glimpses of the unlimited, ever-unfolding mystery.

I’m so grateful for these people,

these places,

the ones I carry,

seen,

and those still before me,

as yet, unseen.

🕘

Just past dawn, the sun stands

with its heavy red head

in a black stanchion of trees,

waiting for someone to come

with his bucket

for the foamy white light,

and then a long day in the pasture.

I too spend my days grazing,

feasting on every green moment

till darkness calls,

and with the others

I walk away into the night,

swinging the little tin bell

of my name.

🔔

Birthday Poem by Ted Kooser

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, beloved, Change, Choice, commitment, confidence, connection, courage, determination, do, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, Freedom, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, Purpose | Leave a comment

20 Jul 2016

mirror mirror

Reborn as a court reporter

Inside a waking dream

Trapped between misspelling Subpoena and shouting guilty over and over

In a feudal land someone personified Justice as a woman, as a joke.
Oh the bliss that reason brings

Cold, calculated, harmony of all things

Where we agree, to agree, to disagree

That we can all agree on something.

“If only I got what I deserved”

Said no man ever.

The wrongs of another cannot be punished too harshly

Until you turn the eye inward,

To the mote and see yourself,

Know yourself,

Judge yourself,

Find mercy for yourself if you can.

Such a futile exercise for man

When you are done with yourself,

Ask if you can ever withhold forgiveness again?

🙀

Finding Mercy by Charles Cooper

We are all of us judged every day. We are judged by the face that looks back at us from the bathroom mirror. We are judged by the faces of the people we love and by the faces and lives of our children and by our dreams. We are judged by the faces of the people we do not love. Each day finds us at the junction of many roads, and we are judged as much by the roads we have not taken as by the roads we have.
The New Testament proclaims that at some unforeseeable time in the future, God will ring down the final curtain on history, and there will come a Day on which all our days and all the judgments upon us and all our judgments upon each other will themselves be judged. The judge will be Christ. In other words, the one who judges us most finally will be the one who loves us most fully.
Romantic love is blind to everything except what is lovable and lovely, but Christ’s love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ’s love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy. The worst sentence Love can pass is that we behold the suffering that Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal. The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one.

⚖

~Frederick Buechner originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words

Somewhere between what it feels like, to be at

one with the sea, and to understand the sea as

mere context for the boat whose engine refuses

finally to turn over: yeah, I know the place—

stumbled into it myself, once; twice, almost. All

around and in between the two trees that

grow there, tree of compassion and—

much taller— tree of pity, its bark

more bronze, the snow  settled as if an openness of any kind meant, as well,

a woundedness that, by filling it, the snow

might heal…You know what I think? I think if we’re

lost, you should know exactly where, by now; I’ve

watched you stare long and hard enough at the map

already…I’m beginning to think I may never

not be undecided, about all sorts of things: whether

snow really does resemble the broken laughter

of the long-abandoned when what left comes back

big-time; whether gratitude’s just a haunted

space like any other. This place sounds daily

more like a theater of war, each time I listen to it—

loss, surprise, victory, being only three of the countless

fates, if you want to call them that, that we don’t

so much live with, it seems, as live for now among. If as

close as we’re ever likely to get, you and I, is this—this close—

⛵️

Carl Phillips.

Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 19, 2016, by the Academy of American Poets

I am not your enemy.

I am for you, not against.

I am not like your anger,

I am not your fear.

I am your joy, your peace.

I am your breathing, your heartbeat,

your blood, your Being.

I am the fullness of you,

unfolding as you let me.

I have only blessing for you,

like a mother for her newborn.

I am your perfection, longing for you.

My judgment is not harsh, but pure mercy,

my seeing your brilliance folded in the bud,

my knowledge of your beauty waiting in you.

I do not judge your doubts

but give you strength to tear them open

and find in them the mirror of your grace.

I know your childish fears,

your helpless lashing out,

I have seen the rage seeping into you.

My wrath burns not against you but that lie.

I will hold you until you quiet in my arms.

You are angry because you are afraid

that I am not here for you

but I am here

for you.

Be still, and let me hold you.
__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Choice, determination, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, focus, grace, Gratitude, Judging, Letting Go, Life, Love, Peace, People, perceptions, Poetry, Prayer | Leave a comment

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