life: acoustic & amplified
poetry, quotes & thoughts about life
Archive for the category “Becoming Yourself”
we came here
Proof of Heaven
this was the reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little you may know me better there. – Aslan
We are brought places so that we may know God, just a little, better here in this broken world. We are given glimpses, shaded bits of glory, the pieces we are ready for, come to us, changing our lives forever, as we attempt to absorb this brilliance, so far beyond our understanding. We grapple and try, to open our minds ever wider. We try to share, in ways we are able, this new understanding, this life changing knowledge, knowing how difficult it is to understand. We could never have understood these things happening before we went through it for ourselves, yet we also know it is too important to keep to ourselves, and we understand that, IF we, who are just ordinary people, have experienced this, (and we cannot deny we have) then it is possible for others as well.
And so, we try. We put it into inadequate words and we share it however we are called, this unexpected knowledge we have been given, even as we are just a bit embarrassed at the position it puts us in. It seems like it was a little simpler before these revelations. Yet it is also the best gift we have ever experienced and we just want others to know, to share it, to open to amazing grace. As Anne LaMotte says, ‘God’s grace comes to us right where we are, but never leaves us there’.
When we find fellow travelers, who have experienced similar things, it is joyous and wonderful to share. It gives us strength, hope and allows us to open ourselves to even more of the unlimited possibilities which are ever present and possible as we move through this place and into the place where we are so intimately known, so completely beloved and so permanently connected.
AL
Listen to Carrie Underwood sing How Great Thou Art http://youtu.be/3X6IzGDoGwo
Photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513
covers off
You cant wake someone
pretending to be asleep
You cant talk to someone
pretending to listen
You can’t touch someone
pretending to be interested
You can’t connect with someone
pretending to be your friend
You can’t teach someone anything
pretending to know everything
You can’t satisfy someone
pretending to be perfect
You can’t give enough to someone
pretending to be grateful
You can’t change the world
pretending to be kind
You can’t heal your heart
pretending it’s not hurting
You can’t solve a problem
pretending you haven’t got one
You cant be loved by someone
pretending to be ready for love
You can’t find the truth
pretending it’s a lie
It is what it is
Pretending never really works…
but don’t even bother telling that to the pretenders
AL
Listen to The Platters sing Smoke Gets in Your Eyes http://youtu.be/BeC9Z1YQjXs
photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513
better, best, best-est
Tired and hungry, late in the day, impelled
to leave the house and search for what
might lift me back to what I had fallen away from,
I stood by the shore waiting.
I had walked in the silent woods:
the trees withdrew into their secrets.
Dusk was smoothing breadths of silk
over the lake, watery amethyst fading to gray.
Ducks were clustered in sleeping companies
afloat on their element as I was not
on mine. I turned homeward, unsatisfied.
But after a few steps, I paused, impelled again
to linger, to look North before nightfall-the expanse
of calm, of calming water, last wafts
of rose in the few high clouds.
And was rewarded:
the heron, unseen for weeks, came flying
widewinged toward me, settled
just offshore on his post,
took up his vigil.
If you ask
why this cleared a fog from my spirit,
I have no answer.
🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂
A Reward by Denise Levertov
Day ends, and before sleep
when the sky dies down, consider
your altered state: has this day
changed you? Are the corners
sharper or rounded off? Did you
live with death? Make decisions
that quieted? Find one clear word
that fit? At the sun’s midpoint
did you notice a pitch of absence,
bewilderment that invites
the possible? What did you learn
from things you dropped and picked up
and dropped again? Did you set a straw
parallel to the river, let the flow
carry you downstream?
🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂🔂
Questions Before Dark by Jeanne Lohmann
Photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT
transformations
There is a teaching that says that behind all hardening and tightening and rigidity of the heart, there’s always fear. But if you touch fear, behind fear there is a soft spot. And if you touch that soft spot, you find the vast blue sky. You find that which is ineffable, ungraspable, and unbiased, that which can support and awaken us at any time.
– Pema Chodron
Listen to JJ Heller sing What Love Really Means http://youtu.be/PgGUKWiw7Wk
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513
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
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
listen to your heart
Listen to Sara Barelllis sing Inside Out http://youtu.be/Pqq2NAVidVs
Photo source 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
life: acoustic & amplified 