The future must enter you, long before it happens.
Just wait for the birth,
for the hour of new clarity.
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– Rainer Maria Rilke
Today is my friend, writer, fellow spirit seeker, Donna Knutson’s birthday!! Wishing her happy today and every day!
Sharing and loving her beautiful thoughts and words describing the lovely world event of her time here:
When 58 is Almost Gone and 59 Flowers Are Coming on Strong
Purple Iris ā¦I let things die, and filled in holesā¦watered children and sappy songs.
Ranted about the radiance of Angels and cardboard boxes filled with 36 years of married loveā¦
I chopped up word search puzzles because there is passion and paradox in loving words that heal, instead of hateā¦then tied them on a string, like prayer flags blowing through the bedroom in a February wind.
I wrote Voice with purple pen on a hundred sheets of silk like paper, folded them in drawers and placed them near the windows, so the morning sun could warm their chords and prepare the world for what sound would come that day.
I angled photos and trinkets from baskets, memorizing short periods of my day where love was the only witness to my growing , to fading a bit more like Autumn, then into a bright summers sunset spoken softly now, rose colored, like winterā¦
Family and friendships took in artists and dreamersā¦wedding vows that added deeper love to our daysā¦heart shaped rocks in tiny boxes on tables to say we belong to one anotherā¦and children that grow into wonderful stories of every lasting loveā¦
It was August before I blew kisses to the toddlers playing in a nearby gym, their jumping and fantasies whirling with my inner child, shaking fingers and toes, while hopping through a hundred thresholds, finding keys to a million doorsā¦
I taught class while learning the heart of acceptance, forgiveness, fables and folliesā¦how one can know absolutely nothing, and everything one needs to knowā¦to be a water-bearer flowingā¦to kneel while pouringā¦to bend at just the right moment, to wash a glass, dimly litā¦
I fought a concrete city with a magical jungle holding religions and relationshipsā¦forgave myself for not knowing how long I had been loved and knownā¦how one gift could change it allā¦found sacred ground under a community with feet. Dancers who know how to move to a rhythm and a beatā¦
God speaking Yes, porous and free ā¦a mystical thread sewn into the bone of the body,
A year like no otherā¦just beginning to gather purple Iris for anotherā¦
Thinking that money will somehow make one happy isn’t thinking at all.
Hey, sorry, you know better. But you might not believe how many people think that just because they don’t have much of it now, its lack is at the root of their challenges, which is never the case.
Nev-a,
It is hard, these steps. This releasing of the emotional debris that encases our heart. The shedding of the false-identifications that obstruct our path. The farewells to that which doesn’t serve. The fundamentlal shift from survivalism to authenticity as a way of being. It is hard, these steps. Because you are not just clearing your individual debris- you are tapping into and releasing the debris carried by your entire ancestry. You are shedding the armor of millions before. You are saying goodbye to ways of being that have served and imprisoned countless generations. You are making the shift from an animalistic way of being to one that is genuinely human. Do not underestimate your significance, fellow seekers of the heart. We may be the first deep release travelers. We may be the first authenticity-questing collective. We may be the first soulpod to consider the possibility that there is a sacred purpose at the heart of every birth. Our load, heavy. Our courage, essential. Our significance, profound. Our need for one another, irrefutable. We rise in unison, or not at all. We rise in unison, one hard ass step after another…
– Jeff Brown
Do not fall out of flow or confidence simply because a task led to hardship or disappointment. On any worthwhile journey, there will be many dead-ends and storms. Endure. Have faith and resolve. Don’t torment your mind wishing the path were conflict-free. Anticipate difficulty and decide to meet all obstacles as if they were obvious, inevitable, stones meant to sharpen your will and character. Happiness isn’t at the end of the path; it is in knowing that you met life and its inevitable hardships and blessings with a mindful grace, strength, and gratitude. What is in front of you is not terrifying or random or impossible – it is your proving ground, your opportunity to learn to bring peace to the chaos, your podiums to show your family and loved ones real grit and love and perseverance. Your only defeat in life will come from a mindset you choose that bemoans difficulty versus anticipates and rises above it.
– Brendon Burchard
Beauty comes in many forms–and there is no form more beautiful than you. Just exactly as you are, this minute, right now, without changing a thing…you are beautiful. Beautiful enough to take God’s breath away.
– Neale Donald Walsh
There is a path we all walk in life. All the places we go when the path gets too rocky and exhausting and brutal and beautiful are dead-end detours. If you take these detours you are not bad, but you are wasting your time and energy.
The path looks like this:
Come back to the path.
Thereās no other way.
You will never find your perfect life ābalanceā on the path for the same reason you will never find a unicorn on the path ā because these things donāt exist. Forget unicorns and balance. If you were perfectly balanced, youād never have to take anyoneās hand to steady yourself, and that would be a tragedy.
There is no solid ground on the path ā so donāt hold your breath till you find it. Breathe deeply and keep moving forward awkwardly. You can make it down the whole path imbalanced and flailing. When you fall, give thanks for the opportunity to rest. While youāre down, send love to every other path walker whoās down with you at that moment.
Then get back up.
Or crawl. Crawling is encouraged and respected. Path running is fine, but crawling is much better. Crawlers travel with their eyes close to the ground ā so they never miss an inch of the beautiful, rocky path. Crawlers get less glory but learn the most about the pathās terrain.
And know your fellow travelers are both your teachers and students. Your relationships with them will be the hardest part of path walking. To avoid humbling oneself into the role of student and having the courage to position oneself into the role of teacher ā many try to walk the path alone.
But the path was not designed for solo treks.
The path was designed to teach Love. Whenever you introduce your true self to a fellow path traveler and listen and speak and learn and stay with her for a while ā that is called Love. Walking with and staying with messy fellow path travelers for any length of time is Love. Love is the most brutal and beautiful part of path traveling. Participate. Learn from and teach every path traveler you encounter. Exchanging love with fellow path travelers is how we gather the wisdom and strength weāll need to overcome the next obstacle on our path.
Note: You do not teach by teaching ā you teach by loving. Be humble and courageous.
You always have enough strength.
And courage and wisdom. You always have exactly what you need for your daily trek. Sometimes you wonāt believe this, because you will encounter stretches of the path that are treacherous and terrifying, but if you give up in the middle of those stretches ā if you sit down permanently in them ā then you have to live there. Donāt live in the dark, scary parts. Trust and keep moving. There will be a clearing soon and you will feel the warm sun again.
The One who created your path is outside of time, so your life is an epic movie that has already been scripted. So donāt plan or worry ā your job is to trust your path and participate fully and notice as much as you possibly can and keep on moving.
But donāt become proud or ashamed.
Donāt become proud that you are further along than many travelers or ashamed that you are far behind others. Your position on the path relative to other travelers has nothing to do with your strength or stamina or wisdom or cunning. We are all in different places because we all have different entry points to the path.
Where you are and where everyone else is along the path is none of your concern or business.
Let that go.
You are exactly where you are supposed to be, always, and so is everyone else. The portion of the path you wake up to today was written for you.
Everyone is exactly where he or she is supposed to be. You are not your own or anyone elseās path-planner. You are just a traveler. You just keep moving. Trust the Path. Follow in the footsteps of a billion other mighty travelers who have walked and run and crawled the path before you.
This day is not ordinary. This day may be one of quiet or chaos, challenge or rest. But no moment is ordinary. It may be familiar. It may be predictable. It may make you frustrated and angry, discouraged and sad. It may be one where you see hope, hope all around. It may be the day you see deeper, go further, pursue a new place youāve never traveled before.
I hold you in what you see as ordinary. I look ahead and stay here with you, in this moment.
Let me unfold it for you.
There is a point where you can no longer see. There is a point where there are obstacles and there is nothing to do but wait on Me, look to Me, desire for Me to take hold of all control and guide you.
Where I guide you, where I am with you, is not the place of ordinary.
There are the regular tasks to get done, the job to do, the responsibilities to complete. It may involve doing the same thing day after day, for a while, and another while.
But still, where I am is not ordinary.
Hereāhere I am, with you. The intake of your breath, the shape of your skin, the ideas taking place in your mind, the beat of your heart. You are a wonder, a beauty, and this day, with all Iāve made, can never be an ordinary day.
Let Me give you new eyes to see so you donāt miss the possibilities around you that I see. Let Me give you new eyes to see so you donāt get discouraged and mistake wonder for ordinary. Let me show you how what you think is mundane may be an opportunity to be with Me in a new way.
I am always new and always the same. You can always count on Me. But I never stop wanting you to see the hidden wonder in this not-so-ordinary day.
What if love never feels safe? What if it was never meant to provide you with consistent feelings of comfort, certainty, and security? What if it comes spinning out of the stars offering something much more radical, creative, and transformative than āsafetyā could ever deliver?
Perhaps it wasn’t safety you were seeking after all, but wholeness and an untamed, erupting sort of aliveness?
No matter how many profound insights you have, how many amazingly powerful awakening experiences you collect, or how convinced you become that you have it all together, you will always be at risk for the beloved to step in and pull the rug out from underneath you. He or she will do whatever it takes to reveal your true nature as open, naked, and outside the realm of the conceptual altogether.
No, it will likely never turn out quite like you thought it would. You can be grateful for that. Perhaps the creative and destructive activity of love will never ask that you ātranscendā your vulnerability, cover over your sensitivity, āhealā your tenderness, or wiggle into some pre-conditioned, second-hand āstateā of āhighā vibration. But rather to give everything in service of the most radical vow of all: to remain embodied to and intimate with the full-spectrum explosion of what it means to be an alive human being in a world that has forgotten.
Perhaps love will always seed your world with the emissaries of reorganizing deflation, come to scatter its sacred nectar and fragrances throughout the four directions. Before you turn from this activity and abandon it as an āobstacleā to your path, renew your vow to stay close and to no longer abandon the wildness within you. For this deflation is holy, unbearably creative, and is forming the crystalline substance of the path in every moment.
When you are totally unclothed ā of all of your spiritual concepts and certain, safe knowing ā love will show you what you are. When the known crumbles away, all that remains is your burning heart. There is nothing more alive than that. There is nothing more sacred than that.
Quote of the Day: Virtue
Next to the seven deadly sins, the seven cardinal virtues are apt to look pale and unenterprising, but appearances are notoriously untrustworthy.
Prudence and temperance, taken separately, may not be apt to get you to your feet cheering, but when they go together, as they almost always do, that’s a different matter. The chain smoker or the junkie, for instance, who exemplifies both by managing to kick the habit, can very well have you throwing your hat in the air, especially if it happens to be somebody whom for personal reasons you’d like to have around a few years longer. And the courage involved isn’t likely to leave you cold either. Often it’s the habit kicker’s variety that seems the most courageous.
If you think of justice as sitting blindfolded with a scale in her hand, you may have to stifle a yawn, but if you think of a black judge acquitting a white racist of a false murder charge, it can give you gooseflesh.
The faith of a child taking your hand in the night is as moving as the faith of Mother Teresa among the untouchables, or Bernadette facing the skeptics at Lourdes, or Abraham, age seventy-five, packing up his bags for the Promised Land. And hope is the glimmer on the horizon that keeps faith plugging forward, of course, the wings that keep it more or less in the air.
Maybe it’s only love that turns things around and makes the seven deadly sins be the ones to look pale and unenterprising for a change. Greed, gluttony, lust, envy, and pride are no more than sad efforts to fill the empty place where love belongs, and anger and sloth just two things that may happen when you find that not even all seven of them at their deadliest ever can.
ā
~ Frederick Bruechner originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words
When I am with you, the only place I want to be is closer. 
life: acoustic & amplified 