Becoming Yourself | life: acoustic & amplified

Archive for the category “Becoming Yourself”

17 Sep 2015

what love looks like

Love heals. Heals and liberates. I use the word love, not meaning sentimentality, but a condition so strong that it may be that which holds the stars in their heavenly positions and that which causes the blood to flow orderly in our veins.

-Maya Angelou

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. I John 4:18

top photo by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT

other photos found on facebook

💞

It’s hard to love someone really,

especially the annoying, the arrogant, the cruel—

because I want to be separate from them.

I don’t want to be one with them,

soiled by their sin, associated with their dirt.

I want to push their boat off in a good direction

but not be in their boat.

But to love someone

is to cease judging the cruel as more cruel than I.

To love someone is to go to heaven or hell with them,

to put my arm around them and go together.

To lay aside my private little self

and be part of our divine oneness.
God leaves the perfect halls of heaven

to be one of us, to be us,

mucked in our grime, weak as the weakest of us,

blamed with our worst, frail, faulty and failed.

It’s not the gracious, condescending gesture

to the needy that makes it love;

it’s the absence of distance, the common wound,

it’s the arm around one, walking the way with one,

the resurrecting grace of giving your whole self away,

changing someone’s life by giving them yours.

It’s hard to love really because you have to die.

You disappear. You stop being separate,

stop being a little “one” so far from the “other,”

and be One. Less than that is zero.
But it’s easy to love, really,

when finally in our failure we give up

and throw away our pretensions of virtue,

and dump out the cardboard box

of our our whole useless heart and all its little pieces,

and, becoming so emptied… wait,

and God fills us with God’s only love

that flows through us without our having to bother

with the work of getting in its way.
It’s hard to love really,

until we empty out

and shine.

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, determination, Faith, Freedom, friendship, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, People, Relationships, Trust, truth | Leave a comment

15 Sep 2015

as in poetry, so in life

Poetry’s favourite moment is when one loses one’s footing because of a landslide or seismic shaking of thought — Michel Leiris

Night Owl Poetry

poem found on facebook/parker palmer
Nature is our greatest teacher. Storms are part of life. Change is good…

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, Blessing, Change, Choice, determination, healing, Letting Go, Life, mystery, nature, Seasons | Leave a comment

09 Sep 2015

sing on

What do you cling to when the waves roll over

your little boat of life?
When the sound drains out of your days,

what still echoes long into the night?
When you cross over the river

what do you still have in your pockets—
a key to something broken, foreign coins,

a medal on a ribbon, inscribed with silence?
What does it profit you— this world,

its flash and sparkle, to weigh yourself
with its precious coals,

and lose the light you are?
If you are God’s love song,

what is there to your life but singing?

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

We are given many gifts
over our lifetimes.

Gifts are heaped upon us.

Every day we receive.

The way we acknowledge these gifts,

the way we receive them,

the counting of the gifts,

awareness in each breath,

our most important choice.

One insight brings us life as

grace or prison.

Heaven or hell

is bound up in gratitude.

I have had many strange and wonderful gifts

received over my life,

so far.

Some took me a long time to recognize the gift within,

some I’m still searching.

Yet this knowledge,

this ability to see,

to choose to see,

the glory in the grey,

stars in the night sky,

there is good in all I receive,

has been the best gift

of all.

Life’s cup runs over.

The path is lined with glittering diamonds.

Even darkest skies are bright with twinkling stars.

Listen to Billie Holiday sing Come Rain or Come Shine http://youtu.be/RL_P-gHxI3Y

photo sources at www.pinterest.com

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Choice, courage, find art at pinterest, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, soul and spirit, strength, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

08 Sep 2015

hello, again!

A few weeks ago I took a break. I truly had no idea if I would return here. I was ok with that – it’s a lovely body of work.

I enjoyed my break, a few times I thought about it…mainly I didn’t….

Over the past three or four days I keep getting a recurring message, ‘speak to the dry bones’. (Haven’t totally worked that out yet…in fact, I’m at sea on it – I welcome any thoughts on it…)

Then, yesterday, I got the message in my soul…time to start again – return and build – and so, here I am. Not really sure where it’s going to go…feels a lot different from my first post 4+ years ago. There are lots of new things going on in my life. Lots of things being moved and removed. Interesting times for me, hard things, as always, still, there is the same, consistent hand of faith holding me, guiding me, urging me on, keeping me on the path of love, joy and peace. The world is a hard, broken place to live in, but deep inside each of us lives the key to overcome the world. I believe that completely.

Thank you for reading my words. Thank you for being a part of my life. Thank you for understanding, or even mis-understanding my thoughts. It’s all good stuff!

Welcome to my adventure!

Love and kisses,

Amy

Wisdom cries out in the street;

at the busiest corner she raises her voice:

“I will pour out my thoughts to you.”

—Proverbs 1.20, 21, 23

I listen.

Amid the clatter and chatter

of my fears and fantasies,

the rattle and traffic of this world

the trip wire pitch, the push,

the drive for the deal

to buy me and sell me—
I listen to your soft voice

humming beneath worry and duty,

steady, its ocean of silence,

its moon of light,
the nearest murmur,

no argument, no decree,

no foreign words, no hard words,

no words,

but wind in grass,

saying all I need to know,
flowing water,

a river poured out in me

to drink, to bathe,

to lie in and float

to your sea.

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

listen to Neil Diamond sing Hello Again http://youtu.be/ZnbMHkiIGwk
Photo sources found at www.pinterest.com

Posted in Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, beloved, Change, Choice, community, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, Joy, Life, Love, Peace, voice | Leave a comment

14 Aug 2015

God’s honest truth

HONESTY
is reached through the doorway of grief and loss. Where we cannot go in our mind, our memory, or our body is where we cannot be straight with another, with the world, or with our self. The fear of loss, in one form or another, is the motivator behind all conscious and unconscious dishonesties: all of us are afraid of loss, in all its forms, all of us, at times, are haunted or overwhelmed by the possibility of a disappearance, and all of us therefore, are one short step away from dishonesty. Every human being dwells intimately close to a door of revelation they are afraid to pass through. Honesty lies in understanding our close and necessary relationship with not wanting to hear the truth.

The ability to speak the truth is as much the ability to describe what it is like to stand in trepidation at this door, as it is to actually go through it and become that beautifully honest spiritual warrior, equal to all circumstances, we would like to become. Honesty is not the revealing of some foundational truth that gives us power over life or another or even the self, but a robust incarnation into the unknown unfolding vulnerability of existence, where we acknowledge how powerless we feel, how little we actually know, how afraid we are of not knowing and how astonished we are by the generous measure of loss that is conferred upon even the most average life.
Honesty is grounded in humility and indeed in humiliation, and in admitting exactly where we are powerless. Honesty is not found in revealing the truth, but in understanding how deeply afraid of it we are. To become honest is in effect to become fully and robustly incarnated into powerlessness. Honesty allows us to live with not knowing. We do not know the full story, we do not know where we are in the story; we do not know who is at fault or who will carry the blame in the end. Honesty is not a weapon to keep loss and heartbreak at bay, honesty is the outer diagnostic of our ability to come to ground in reality, the hardest attainable ground of all, the place where we actually dwell, the living, breathing frontier where there is no realistic choice between gain or loss.
– David Whyte

photo sources: top 2 photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT

other photos @ http://www.pinterest.com

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, courage, intimacy, Life, Love, People, power, Respect, soul and spirit, strength, Trust, truth, Vulnerability | Leave a comment

13 Aug 2015

who’s responsible?

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, determination, find art at pinterest, grace, Gratitude, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, nature, People, Relationships, soul and spirit, Uncategorized, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

12 Aug 2015

standing tall

Erik Wahl:

The purpose of art is not to produce a product. The purpose of art is to produce thinking. The secret is not the mechanics or technical skill that create art – but the process of introspection and different levels of contemplation that generate it. Once you learn to embrace this process, your creative potential is limitless.
Artwork should be an active verb (a lens by which to view the world) not a passive noun (a painting that sits dormant in a museum). Creativity lies NOT in the done but in the doing. Art is active and incomplete. Always shifting, always becoming. Art is a sneak peak into the future of potential, of what could be. Not a past result of what has been already done. Art is a process not a product.
Art is a human act. Art is Risky. Generous. Courageous. Provocative. You can be perfect, or you can make art. You can keep track of what you will get in return for your effort, or you can make art. You can enjoy the status quo, or you can make art.
This is the purpose for why art should not be cut from education.

Photo sources found at www.pinterest.com

Posted in action, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Career, Change, Choice, courage, determination, find art at pinterest, mystery, soul and spirit, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

05 Aug 2015

beauty in all she is

It’s true, what all our heroes say. There is a way

in this world for beauty,

for good. It may

be a crooked path

in a tanglewood, but

stay the course and,

when the way grows rocky,

walk your horse,
and who knows, you may yet

come upon the wild rose,

as I have done, and,

paying close attention,

keep from crushing her into

the grime, and then,

with any luck, in time

remember how you found her

and how to find her again

when the way gets wilder.

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

To a Wild Rose by Todd Boss

In the Celtic tradition, there is a beautiful understanding of love and friendship. One of the fascinating ideas here is the idea of soul-love; the old Gaelic term for this is anam ċara. Anam is the Gaelic word for soul and ċara is the word for friend. … In the early Celtic church, a person who acted as a teacher, companion, or spiritual guide was called an anam Ċara. It originally referred to someone to whom you confessed revealing the hidden intimacies of your life. With the anam ċara you could share your innermost self, your mind, and your heart. This friendship was an act of recognition and belonging. … In everyone’s life there is great need for an anam ċara, a soul friend, in this love you are understood as you are without mask or pretension. Where you are understood, you are at home.