life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “beauty”

the same moon

  
What light?
look yonder. 
Is that a candle in the window of a stranger?

Is it the moon, which shines for all the same? 
or could it be the glow of love
from the heart of a friend?
a fellow pilgrim with shining eyes.
a brother or sister,
who may not look like me,
may not talk like me, 
but with whom I share the same royal bloodline –
the light of hope 
which lives within all
created by God
for goodness sake
let me come near to you
let me share your pathway 
let’s walk in this light together for a while
so I can learn your songs
and you can learn mine

🌝

AL

  
  

uphold the integrity of the quest   – spoken @ Infusion Cincinnati 

 

A GLIMPSE

The beauty of the imagination is that it can discover such magnificent vastness inside a tiny space. Our culture is dominated by quantity. Even those who have plenty hunger for more and more. Everywhere around us, the reign of quantity extends and multiplies. Sadly the voyage of greed has all the urgency but no sense of destination. Desire becomes inflated and loses all sense of vision and proportion. When beauty becomes an acquisition it brings no delight. When time seemed longer and slower, the eye of the beholder had more space and distance to glimpse the beautiful. There was a respect for the worlds that could be suggested by a glimpse. 

☄

 John O’Donohue 

 Excerpt from BEAUTY

  

I steal glimpses of beauty,

in all she is – 

this moment,

sky in my rearview. 

A huge bowl of rainbow sherbet

my favorite-color-kind

with raspberry, orange & lime

swatches of lemon, indigo & periwinkle 

float like barges –

in, out 

&

around.

Framing. 

Dancing. 

Living. 

At one point tangerine fills the top of the hilly crest,

headlight stars 

blaze brilliant against the backdrop. 

Indigo stretched above, framing this momentary masterpiece. 

At times I find it hard to keep moving forward

into the matt gray of drudgery ahead.

With so much loveliness going on 

right behind me…

how can I keep heading away from it?

How can I not be a part of this splendor?

Eventually, midnight blue seizes its moment of glory,

then night falls over all, 

and I am left,

aching with the beauty,

the majesty,

the extravagant display,

of this wonderful world. 

I go to wondering

if this longing in my heart

will ever be answered?

If my whole life I will wait 

for a moment which will never come? 

Will it never be realized under this piece of sky? 

Will it always be this whisper?

The magic of hope,

this thing with wings, 

hovering over my heart

for another 50 years, 

echoing on into eternity.  

🌄

AL

   


  

 

 

progress 

 

 In this long dark, logic and plain sight are useless. You navigate by the diffuse and reflective attention of the moon and stars. Bringing a deep, penetrating silence to the knowing that lives in your bones, stirs in your womb and emanates from your dreams, you recognize that you are no longer who you used to be and not yet still who you will become. You are both, you are neither, you are perfectly between things.

Even if distantly and dimly at first, abilities you never had during the day are coming alive. Where you used to seek leadership outside yourself, now yours is the deciding voice. Fear is becoming your strange ally, as you learn to honour and cradle its soft underbelly. Instinct and the mystical pull of your feeling leads the way. You can sense the density of objects around you, hear the songs of stones and know things are coming even before they’ve left.
For you, brave pilgrim, I hold this lantern at the crossroads. While others are anxious to see you arrive, I praise your vast withstanding of the uncertainty from which all meaning is born. 

❤️

– Love, Toko-pa 

http://www.toko-pa.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 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

   

photo sources at http://www.pinterest.com 

full investigation…   

 

 Author Kent Crockett tells this classic story about his two year old son, Scott, who was sitting on the floor crying. Kent went into the room to investigate and he noticed a plastic baseball bat on the floor and asked his four year old daughter what happened. His little girl, Hannah, said, “He hit his head.” Kent said, “On what?” She pointed to the floor and said, “The bat.” Kent said, “Where was the bat?” She said, “In my hands.”
 

  

  

Where there is love

Where there is people

There is pain

Disappointment

Misunderstanding

Differences

Separation

Tears 

Imperfection

Where there is love

Where there is people

There is joy

Inspiration

Community

Understanding

Connection 

Life is about love

Life is about people

Embracing it all 

Feeling it all 

❤️💔❤️💔❤️💔❤️

AL

  
   
  

  

photo sources found at http://www.pinterest.com 

stay in the moment  

 

I do not wish you riches, not the glow of greatness.

But that wherever you go, some weary heart shall gladden at your smile,

or some shadowed life know sunshine for a while.

So may your path be a track of light,

like angel’s footsteps passing through the night.

                                                                                          -Found in an old church in Upwaltham, England

what if I never see this spot again?

what if this is my last day to see this particular

brand of beauty?

what if I never again feel the depths of the oh-so-perfect imperfection of who I am at this place?

what if I never again have a conversation 

with these polka-dot tailed seagulls?

never see these particular shades of blue and green/grey metallic ocean 

reflecting this piece of sky 

dotted with these aged green mossed stoned edges 

and raggedy, fragile, wisp-clouds?

what if the sun doesn’t ever hit my eyes again with this same blinding glory-glare,

this playtime, fun-time, of winter sun heat

mixed with just a hint of coming springtime chill?

can I drink enough in this moment?

can I permanently record the glorious, salty, smell of this ordinary, extraordinary, morning 

into my eternal bank account 

of favorite things ever?

will I be present enough to this once in a lifetime experience of right-this-very minute-ness,

to hold it inside my bones,

absorb it into the very fabric of my dna,

so that it actually becomes me?

so that, my future conversations

with all the grieving, broke-down, hearts;

all the rioting, joyous, hearts;

all the skipping.a.beat wondering,

or sandbag.heavy wandering hearts;

in this world,

will be informed by this exquisite soul beauty. 

will they be able to feel this exact moment

massaged into the broken hope of their lost wholeness?

will they feel the bubbles of it in the champagne of their happiness?

see the beginnings of the road home within their weary, dusty, blistered pilgrimage feet?

will I be able to allow it to glow, 

flow, 

freely

to every child of God?

will I be able to remember? 

this light is the light of everything.

we are all God’s children. 

we are all God’s beloved children. 

☀️

AL

 

 So that I stopped there
and looked into the waters

seeing not only

my reflected face

but the great sky

that framed my lonely figure

and after a moment

I lifted my hands

and then my eyes

and I allowed myself

to be

astonished

by the great everywhere

calling to me

like an old,

invisible and unspoken

invitation,

like something

in one moment

both calling to me

and radiating

from where I stood,

as if I could encompass

everything I had been given

and everything ever

taken from me 

as if I could be

everything I have learned 

and everything

I could ever know,

as if I knew

in that moment

both the way I had come

and, secretly,

the way

I was still promised to go,

brought together,

like this,

with the unyielding ground

and the symmetry

of the moving sky,

caught in still waters,

 

Someone I have been,

and someone

I am just, 

about to become,

something I am

and will be forever,

the sheer generosity

of being loved

through loving:

the miracle reflection

of a twice blessed life.

Š Twice Blessed by David Whyte: from  Work in Progress

  

extra special

  
An extra day —

Like the painting’s fifth cow,
who looks out directly,
straight toward you,
from inside her black and white spots. 

An extra day —

Accidental, surely:
the made calendar stumbling over the real
as a drunk trips over a threshold
too low to see.

An extra day —

With a second cup of black coffee.
A friendly but businesslike phone call.
A mailed-back package.
Some extra work, but not too much —
just one day’s worth, exactly.

An extra day —

Not unlike the space
between a door and its frame
when one room is lit and another is not,
and one changes into the other
as a woman exchanges a scarf.

An extra day —

Extraordinarily like any other.
And still
there is some generosity to it,
like a letter re-readable after its writer has died.

💌

February 29 by Jane Hirshfield

  

 

Catch that poem 

 

 Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.
☄

– Mary Oliver

 

 Running to Catch a Poem: Remembering the Poet in the Story 

Poems came to me

As if from far away.

I would feel them coming,

I would rush into the house,

Looking for paper and pencil.

It had to be quick,

For they passed through me

And were gone forever.

💫

– Ruth Stone, “Fragrance” (in her last collection “What Love Comes To”

💥

As a poet myself, I feel for Ruth Stone, because thanks to Elizabeth Gilbert, Stone’s mode of chasing poems like runaway horses is favorite, but few have read the poet herself or even remember her name. It’s well worth seeking out her work and noticing, along the way, how she rose above a dark river of grief and pain, especially after her second husband (also a poet) hanged himself from a door in the family home.
Oh yes. Then there are two delicious further revelations in Gilbert’s account of how she heard it from Stone. When a poem got away from her, she felt it galloping away, “searching for another poet”. Then sometimes she would manage to grab an escaping poem by the tail, and would feel herself pulling it back. “In these instances, the poem would appear on the page from the last word to the first – backward, but otherwise intact.” (Elizabeth Gilbert, “Big Magic”, 65.)
Many of us dreamers know exactly how that works, as we pull back dreams by the tail as they run away. How many of the dreams that escape go searching for another dreamer?

💫

Robert Moss

 

photo sources found @ http://www.pinterest.com 

🌟
http://www.mossdreams.com

✨

http://maryoliver.beacon.org

 

 I string words like pearls
Knotting silence between each one

like silk thread

in a jewelers skillful hands

long strands or chokers

strategic placing of diamonds

where needed

sometime a sparkling featured

brilliant jeweled pendant 

always taking special care with the hardware

the finishing is the most important

must stand up to daily use

easy for right or left hands alike

then a final polish before bagging

when each piece is complete

💦

AL
 

do a little bit more

 

I hope you have a great day

I hope you know I love you

I hope you love me in whatever way you can

I hope you see the miracles today

I hope you make good choices

I hope you find peace

I hope life blooms again for you

I hope the lights lead you home

I hope you see the shining possibility of the future 

I hope you always remember 

😘

AL

  

 One day you will find the thing
You are meant to love

And it will whittle you down

Make you lean of excess

One day the tattered baggage

You’ve been carrying from place to place

Will get set down on the side of the road

With hardly a thought

One day you’ll decide you’ve had enough

Of the shackles chaffing your ankles

And you’ll walk out of them

The ties that once bound so tightly suddenly slack

One day you’ll be nothing but sinew and bone and burning passion

All claws and wails and sweetness and strength

A wild thing

A thing that’s found its home

🏡

One Day by BRANDI REYNOLDS

 

photo sources found at http://www.pinterest.com 

What is our relationship to that which is larger than us?    – Mark Nepo 

  
Picasso, when asked if painter’s ideas come to him “by chance or by design answer: “I don’t have a clue. Ideas are simply starting points. I can rarely set them down as they come to my mind. As soon as I start to work, others well up in my pen. To know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing… When I find myself facing a blank page, that’s always going through my head. What I capture in spite of myself interests me more than my own ideas”.

 

   
  

  
Thank you, in advance. It’s what I desire. 💞

willingly

 

 It was heartbreak that showed me the courage of the feminine. The gift of having your heart smashed open by love and its related disappointments is that you remember what its like to feel everything again after days, years, lifetimes spent below armour. Through enheartened eyes, we see the courage it takes to stay in the feeling realm. We reward emotional armour because it allows us to ‘succeed’ in a survivalist world, when we should be honoring those who have the courage to remain emotionally receptive and open on the battlefields of life. It took me this long to realize that remaining heart-centred in this world is the greatest achievement of all.
💞

   – Jeff Brown

  
Courage, dear heart!
These gifts we bring

an open heart 

an open mind

empty hands

a love song pure

a life lived grateful

an eye for your beauty

a ready smile

feet quick to help the fallen

kind words spoken

a porch for sharing

a welcome hello

a warm goodbye

simplicity is hard to achieve 

yet the best things always are

❤️

AL

  
 

find photo sources at http://www.pinterest.com 

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