We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.
đź•Š
-Kurt Vonnegut
how little I understand
about life
how small is my vision
how tiny my wings
my experience negligible
my brain so under developed
my travels so limited
even as I attempt to smash the box of my learning
as I fight to open to all good things
as the mystery,
the dream,
gets bigger
my desire to see,
touch,
taste,
handle,
hear,
experience
burns me to the ground
carries me to the sky
fills me with longing
empties me of myself
allows me to be a part of the whole miracle producing she-bang
calls me to be courageous-
a brilliant dancer, even
in spite of my fear,
my limiting inheritance
my illusion of having two left feet
stop thinking so much
just be
just dance
just fly
đź•Š
AL
You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.
We can’t find our path without getting messy. Messy comes with the territory. We came in messy. We learn messy. We love messy. We leave messy. I never found my way to clarity without first befriending confusion, in all its chaotic forms. I never found a path that felt like home before falling into quicksand. I never established a new way of being without trying the wrong way of being on for size. I never found the light without stumbling around in the dark. I never tasted God before getting a little dirt in my mouth. In the heart of the chaos is the clay that shapes us home.
Chaotic Magnificence!
🌀
– Jeff Brown an excerpt from the book Love it Forward
Let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy; To return home at eventide with gratitude; And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
– Kahlil Gibran
My language the size of a seed, small and frozen for a winters night…the sweet drain of being married to the fire side heat and slippers …
Honey drenched while walking towards the woods …
tender landscape of icicles frozen on glass…
a mirror wiped dry of reflection…
something pierced deep in the breast while creating less, and easing into body’s rhythm
the howl of the moon, the darkness too bright…
devoured by love…
seeking water but kept thirsty…
fabulous root in the deep of my core…a sigh left for longing…
Beauty,
Donna Knutson

Under the light of eternity
things,
the daily trivia,
the daily frustrations,
fall away.
It is all a matter of getting to the center of the beam.
~ May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude
Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it; men come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just; by doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled; and by doing brave acts, we become brave……
🔹
to be right, of course.
How do we live with the reality of ‘seeing in part’,
through a ‘dark veil’,
with just glimpses of the light in the night sky,
we fish in the darkness,
trying to catch one small piece of a star at a time,
just to have it burn out,
leaving us to go back and try again?
This is the life of the seekers,
the mystics,
the warriors,
who have been seized with the firm belief –
that life matters.
That love is the way to healing.
That there is always more of God to be had.
The mystery gets bigger with each illumination.
The balance comes from allowing it all.
Good. Bad.
Joy. Sorrow.
Sickness. Pain.
Poverty. Wealth.
Even the broken path,
the truth and the lies,
have eternal divine purpose.
Our task to
learn,
open,
love,
trust,
forgive,
heal,
move,
sing,
dance,
create,
keep letting go,
keep changing,
be present,
through it all.
We dream the large dreams of living into our best selves.
We focus intently on each small task before us.
We think,
We listen,
We give,
We receive.
We speak, when necessary.
We walk daily in vigilance.
Letting the legacy of each day stand on it’s own.
We live knowing our next choice is always our most important….
and so it goes
and so it goes
🌀
AL
Sometimes you have to leave
what you think you know
behind.
No one ever really wants to do this.
Knowing things
can be very comforting.
All day, soul whispers
what I need to know.
I don’t hear her
until I lay aside
cherished beliefs and assumptions
until I dare to be with the not-knowing.
And then. . . .
Well, that’s the risky part, isn’t it?
There is no telling
what living an ensouled life
might ask of us.
~Oriah “Mountain Dreamer” House
So this is where I am in writing the book, “The Choice,” -on the great plain of not knowing, offering myself- pen in hand- anyway. Each day, the darkness yields to the light, and words hit the page, surprising me. This is what it’s like: the light coming again and again, the darkness making the illumination breath-taking.
photos found at http://www.pinterest.com
life: acoustic & amplified 