The first 50 years are for learning the second 50 years are for living. – awesome truth overheard by Joan Jacobs
Listen to Ed Sheeran sing Thinking Out Loud http://youtu.be/f6Cswdm601A
Photo found at www.pinterest.com/al513
life: acoustic & amplified
poetry, quotes & thoughts about life
Archive for the category “beauty”
stylin’ myself
I have always loved fashion
I still remember my shiny red rain boots
before I was even in first grade.
that blue satin dress
with puffy sleeves,
the purple gingham smock top worn with white bell bottoms.
I still remember the feeling
of falling in love with the words
‘desert boots’ on the school bus.
all through my life fashion has been
my field of study
what looks good with what,
on which body type,
what shoe looks best with what look,
it all matters in some weird way,
and yes, I am a believer in
shoes make the outfit.
BUT…
There are days when I enjoy
carrying on a family tradition
of really bad fashion
I remember my grandmother
free and easy
in old men’s pants with rips and tears in unfortunate places
old shirts, ripped and shabby.
Plaids and stripes of different colors and generations
smelling of pipe tobacco and mothballs,
mixed with house coats and bare feet,
occasionally high heels from a different day.
I remember my embarrassment,
and my wonder at her courage,
to wear these things
in public
(Declaring I would NEVER do such a thing)
and then to dance in them for us,
my cheeks would burn
the many times she blatantly revealed to all present
She was ‘commando’
(long before I knew what that term meant)
I remember my Aunt Margie
wearing ripped and way too thin
cotton
T-shirts and long-johns
Mis-matched and
way to revealing
to be comfortable
for anyone but her.
My Uncle Buddy used to say,
A stitch in time…saves embarrassment!
Neither listened.
I smile at myself today when I chose a mix of plaids and stripes,
colors clashing cheerfully,
sweat pants and flip flops
my hair flying in the air
I wear a smile and there’s passion in my eyes.
Revealing my faith
and the firm belief that,
in a moment,
anything could happen.
It makes me happy every time
I catch my colorful, jumbled reflection in a mirror,
or the microwave door.
I feel connected and rooted to my ancestors.
The ones of family folk lore,
who wore fur coats in the summertime and had fights in the middle of church –
sisters pushing each other off the organ stool…
just because their hair looked good that day
and they wanted to be seen…
yes, I am a descendant of colorful characters,
ones with imagination and courage,
ones with flair and the brass to stand proud
and pull off their living,
and fashion, with
style and grace, or at least,
loads of panache
and silliness.
I am now older,
and a wee bit wiser
from that easily embarrassed, trying to fit in,
girl I used to be.
thankfully I have grown comfortable in my own skin.
I now realize
the true power of fashion
is the reflection and revelation of how we view ourselves.
the true power of style
is the reflection and revelation of our character and creativity.
the true power of beauty
is the reflection and revelation of how well we know our own personal value(s) –
and respect the value(s) of those around us.
today I stand in the power of my heritage
the beauty of each person’s worth,
though you will need to look behind and beyond
these stripes and plaids.
At first glance you may think I made a mistake with my wardrobe today.
I may not seem to know much about fashion.
But if you take the time to look,
with new vision,
you will know I chose this on purpose
and you will begin to see
the vastness of this gift,
this legacy I have just begun to
fully love and appreciate:
beauty is in each one of us,
style is knowing the truth
of our beauty within
and letting it shine!
AL
Listen to Tony Bennet & Lady Gaga sing Lady is A Tramp http://youtu.be/ZPAmDULCVrU
photo sources found on www.pinterest.com/al513
mediocrity…never…the battle is on!
Feeling empty and unstrung
I wake from my dream
warnings of being unwilling to change
of being stuck in one place
unwilling to do things different
I sit at my desk
afraid
because this dream was not about you
it was about me
and it scares the hell outta me
that it is what I will allow.
I know
the tractor beam of mediocrity is on –
will my shields hold?
Will I stay out of the pig pen,
or just give up and wallow in the stinky mud?
The comfortable parking space calls me..
All this,
and the glaring monotony,
the forced prison,
of my day
stares at me.
how will I break this day open?
how will I know I have
reached beyond my need for security?
how will I battle my own resistance?
how will I stay focused on my own need,
and not distract myself with yours?
I open poems by Mary Oliver
The Moths is all it takes!
I feel the door of freedom swing open wide.
I write
I post
I say ‘thank you’
for these, and all the other words.
Within the hour I get a comment from Oriah, whose poem,
The Invitation,
was a life changer
and I know life
has answered my need to know
that I am connected to the whole
I feast
on bacon
with a side of strawberries n cream & passion fruit Godiva truffles
knowing there is always
more goodness
than I could ever eat up
my cup is overfull and sticky
from all that honey
from all those
beauti-ous bees.
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
AL (Oct 2013)
Listen to Willie Nelson sing This Face http://youtu.be/_79LW9_OIUA
😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍
Find photo sources at www.pinterest.com/al513
The mind must
set itself up
wherever it goes
and it would be
most convenient
to impose its
old rooms—just
tack them up
like an interior
tent. Oh but
the new holes
aren’t where
the windows
went.
🏡🏠🏠🏡🏠🏡🏠🏡
New Rooms by Kay Ryan
water ditty’s
Sit and be still
until in the time
of no rain you hear
beneath the dry wind’s
commotion in the trees
the sound of flowing
water among the rocks,
a stream unheard before,
and you are where
breathing is prayer.
VI: Sabbaths 2001 [Sit and be still] by Wendell Berry
There is only one way, aging beauties,
to go down this river,
to hear the water’s music over the rocks,
to find a loving I, Thou, Who.
I say, spring out of the boat,
jump in naked, tender,
with your ferocious heart torn open.
💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💦
Hear the Water’s Music by Tere Sievers
Listen to Keb Mo sing I’ll Be Your Water http://youtu.be/jTvsHvd0Mkk
beautiful places
Gods in the cloud and fairies in the mist
The hills in Guilin look like.
Deep as feelings and sweet as dreams
The Lijiang River ever runs.
Song of Guilin Landscape by He Jingzin
Listen to Christina Perri sing A Thousand Years http://youtu.be/q9ayN39xmsI
🌏🌎🌏🌎
I am thinking about burning
About letting a passion for life-
Not my life or your life- but Life itself
Burn away my hesitation to taste this breath
Filled with the sweet greening of summer
This breath, laden with longing and confusion.
I am thinking about burning
About the flame of desire
That insists that how I move through this day
Be more about love-making
Than about the achievement of things
Too thin to nourish my soul.
I am thinking about burning.
I am lighting a match.
I am making of myself
Kindling for the fires
Of living awake to this moment
Of letting Love have its way with me.
~Oriah House (c) 2015 “The Burning”
just a thought
Strange to realize
on our very worst day of life
someone else is having their very best day
Every death
is countered with birth,
Every grieving tear
with belly laughter
On the night we see the stars fall
the sun is rising on the other side of the world.
The human spirit cannot be conquered
we rise again,
and again, each time we fall
Tides come in
tides go out, over and over
With every broken heart
there is an answering new moment of love
For every first kiss
a final slamming of the door –
figuratively and/or literally
For every threshold we cross
we must cross another in a new moment
there are always new crossings
We each have moments of glory
moments of defeat
Worry is always a paper tiger
stripping our moments of joy
Illusions of control hide behind our eyes
always revealed to be a waste of our precious resources
our time here is too valuable to waste on such things
There is a time for every season
In all, we are to bring praise,
as sacrifice – as gift –
this simple act
the amazing hat-trick to the healing of our wounds
when, in every single circumstance,
we stand in the,
sometimes difficult,
sometimes brilliant,
beauty, kindness and truth of that very moment
and give thanks.
AL
Listen to George Harrison sing Give Me Love http://youtu.be/s-KAvPbO8JY
🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌏
photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513
a poem a day
All poems are not equal
Just like grades of meat
and paper towels,
there are poems that are tough to chew on, stringy even
then there poems that melt into your mouth and soul, like velvety cream
some poems are flavored to perfection
and lots of poems with no salt
There are sturdy poems which mop up the spills of your heart
and thin poems, flimsy, ones that fall apart when you try to use them
There are poems that move and feel good in your hands
and poems that make your skin crawl when you read them.
No, all poems are not equal –
sometimes I wonder
why I like this thing called ‘poetry’ at all.
At other times I know exactly
why I have fallen so passionately
in love.
❤️
AL
Listen to Stephen Burt at TEDx on Why We Need poetry http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_burt_why_people_need_poetry
Listen to John Denver sing Poems, Prayers and Promises http://youtu.be/M6PEsa36SRY ❤️
photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513
❤️
for you…
dancing…
Music is playing,
music with an aim, produced,
music of collusion and desire,
insistent and sexual.
Hard not to move with the music.
Hard not to fall into the rhythm,
seduce and be seduced.
But don’t slip on the blood
on the floor.
Other music plays,
silent, within.
Different feel, different band.
Music of a beating heart,
melody of tumbling water,
lullaby whispered for a lifetime,
song of hearts set free.
The Beloved cuts in.
“May I have this one?”
No one to impress, only to offend.
No one to dance for, only with.
Dance.
Let joy move you,
even in the face of evil,
let love move you.
Before the guns,
behind the prison bars,
on the gallows, dance.
Dance on your own grave.
When they threaten you, dance
the other dance that at last
will consume them as well.
Unseen, though you know within,
the Beloved takes you in steady arms.
Dance.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻
the story of your name is written in my book, your beginning, the moment where you felt you ended and I begin. That is your beginning, child.
You begin where you end and I begin.
And the story keeps writing, child. After beginning there is adventure. After beginning there is trust and falling and catching and believing and choosing and waiting. There is much waiting and beginning again.
Your story running right off the page with Me. – Loop Devotional from Gather Ministries
💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻
Listen to Lee Ann Womack sing I Hppe You Dance http://youtu.be/RV-Z1YwaOiw
💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻
photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513
soul listening
The intellect wants a summary meaning – all well and good for the purposeful nature of the mind. But the soul craves depth of reflection, many layers of meaning, nuances without end, references and allusions and prefigurations. All these enrich the texture of an image or story and please the soul by giving it much food for rumination. – Thomas Moore
You’ll know you’ve made the right decision when there is peace in your heart. Stop listening to what the world says you should do. Start listening to your own heart. There are only a few people in this world who will stay completely true to you, and YOU should be one of them. Listen to your own voice, your own soul, too many people listen to the noise of the world, instead of themselves. Deep inside, you know what you want, let no one decide that for you. — Unknown
Where does that singing start, you know,
that thin sound—almost pure light?
Not the birds at false dawn or their song
when morning comes, feathered throats
warm with meaning. A different kind of music.
Listen, it is somewhere near you.
In the heart, emptied of fear,
stubbornly in love
with itself at last, the old
desires a ruined chorus,
a radiant bloody choir.
Where does the singing start?
Here, where you are, there’s room
between your heartbeats,
as if everything you have ever been
begins, inside, to sing.
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
A Summer’s Singing by Lorna Crozier
Listen to D. H. T. sing Listen to Your Heart http://youtu.be/C4HJ0zfZ-EM
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513
interesting conversations (grade: C-)
HAMLET: To be, or not to be–that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep–
No more–and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep–
To sleep–perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. — Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! — Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.
🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀
Read more at http://www.monologuearchive.com/s/shakespeare_001.html#q445B8QYR85jGYt2.99
I think of difficult days
Days I struggle to stay alive
To keep my head above water
To put one foot in front of the other
To stay hydrated in the middle of my water works
I think of days of joy
When everything sparkles
When I say hello to the bright-eyed me in the mirror
When I am so glad I’m alive
So connected to the whole
I think about the moods of nature
The sunny days
The gray days
Days of angry storms
or gentle raindrops
Days of extreme
Just like me
Extreme weather
caused by my energy
the energy around me
environmental and
relational factors
personal forecast
Todays weather calls for
Sunny outlook
with occasional clouds
a few showers through out the day
wine at sunset
moon full tonight
with a dream or two of your kisses
still warm on my lips
floating through
Waking to a great day tomorrow
until I see you again
😱😱😱😱😱😱😱
AL
Listen to Amos Lee sing Soul Suckers http://youtu.be/zqidM_U9rgU
☔️☀️☔️☀️☔️☀️
photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513
life: acoustic & amplified 