life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Beginning”

end of an era

No man is an island, 

 

 Entire of itself; 

 

 Every man is a piece of the continent,  

 

 A part of the main.  

 If a clod be washed away by the sea, 

 

 Europe is the less, 

 

 As well as if a promontory were: 

 

 As well as if a manor of thy friend’s 

 

 Or of thine own were.  

 Any man’s death diminishes me, 

 

 Because I am involved in mankind. 

 

 And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; 

 

 It tolls for thee. 

No man is an island by John Donne

Wild Nights – Wild Nights!

Were I with thee

Wild Nights should be

Our luxury!
Futile – the winds –

To a heart in port –

Done with the compass –

Done with the chart!
Rowing in Eden –

Ah, the sea!

Might I moor – Tonight –

In thee!
*

Wild Nights—Wild Nights! (249) by Emily Dickinson


Good-bye
A woman with a scarf over her head hoists her six-year-old up onto the first step of the school bus. “Good-bye,” she says.
A father on the phone with his freshman son has just finished bawling him out for his poor grades. There is mostly silence at the other end of the line. “Well, good-bye,” the father says.
When the girl at the airport hears the announcement that her plane is starting to board, she turns to the boy who is seeing her off. “I guess this is good-bye,” she says.
The noise of the traffic almost drowns out the sound of the word, but the shape of it lingers on the old man’s lips. He tries to look vigorous and resourceful as he holds out his hand to the other old man. “Good-bye.” This time they say it so nearly in unison that it makes them both smile.
It was a long while ago that the words God be with you disappeared into the word good-bye, but every now and again some trace of them still glimmers through.

 

~Frederick Buechner originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words


I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Today is the day. As this blog ends I am so grateful for these past years. 

I will creating new things. I believe in poetry….it is foundational in my life and healing. 

I will do at least one last post to redirect those interested to my new spaces in the world. 

I leave you with a most exciting quote from my friend Peter Block: 

Every time we walk into a room the future walks in with us!  

awareness is the key to change 

I tell my father about the way 

I collect small things

in the sacs of my heart—

thick juniper berries

apple cores that retain their shape

and the click of shells

that sound like an oven baking.

He presses the mole on my shoulder

that matches his shoulder,

proof that I was not found

at the bottom of the sea.

I also got his feet, far from

Cinderella’s dainty glass slippers

—
and fingers, too wide for most

Cracker Jack wedding rings.

I read how some mammals never

forget their young—

their speckled spots, odd goat

cries, or birthmarks on curved ivory tusks. 

There must be some

thread of magic there

cooling honey to stone—where

like recognizes like or how

a rib seeks its twin.

🙋🏼🙋🏼

A Taste of Blue by Cynthia Manick


Our survival adaptations are so tough, but our wounds are so delicate. To heal, we have to lift the armor carefully- it saved our lives, after all. It’s like moving your best friend off to the side of the path. You don’t trample on her, you don’t hit her with a sledgehammer. You honor her presence like a warm blanket that has kept you safe and sound during wintry times. And then, when the moment is right, you get inside and stitch your wounds with the thread of love, slowly and surely, not rushing to completion, nurturing as you weave, tender and true. The healing process has a heart of its own, moving at its own delicate pace. We are such wondrous weavers…

💞

 – Jeff Brown


TO STAND HERE
is to stand

at the center

of circle 

after growing circle

and reach

in the mind

for a far circumference

that holds as focus

an interior so far in

so concentrated

with origin

we find ourselves

by looking out

at what looks back,

the lighted edge 

of rock and sky,

the sweet

unmoving darkness

over the horizon 

that makes

a perfect 

beckoning symmetry

to the night

beneath our feet,

the underground

where light cannot live

but whose darkness

makes a ground 

on which to stand.
The central 

ancestral story

of those who

lived here

looking out

at the same horizon

and the same 

surrounding

ground,

who saw a world

that witnessed them

at a privileged 

center,

their lives caught

like ours

in the glance

of what lies beyond

only 

for a fleeting

moment.

From LON’S FORT

From Pilgrim: Poems by David Whyte


Refuse to fall down

If you cannot refuse to fall down,

refuse to stay down.

If you cannot refuse to stay down,

lift your heart toward heaven,

and like a hungry beggar, 

ask that it be filled. 

You may be pushed down.

You may be kept from rising.

But no one can keep you from lifting your heart

toward heaven

only you.

It is in the middle of misery

that so much becomes clear.

The one who says nothing good

came of this, 

is not yet listening.

–Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

   – Mahatma Gandhi


I’m not here to live up to your expectations and you’re not here to live up to mine. 

    – Bruce Lee

I am here to tell you morning has come 

there’s this whisper promise 

in the breeze,

a bit of ethereal fog slipping between the sheets 

of night 

and dawn breaking.
there’s this rumor running 

afoot in this new born day,

a sideways glance of something – 

Oh it’s JOY! 

and all this glory burning hot. 
there’s this holy hushing

songs of angels,

a chorus of bluebells

bowing heads

softly clapping

as they watch it all approaching. 
there’s this first blush of light,

smudging darkness,

a bit like the bitter and sweet

mixed each day with our longing 

for joy to come nest. 
there’s a song playing on low

sometimes you forget to remember 

be still and know

as sure as spring follows winter

love always wins

listen to your heartbeat 

joy is our birthright 

right now

morning has come

🌞
Amy Lloyd (AL)


It could happen any time, tornado,

 earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.

 Or sunshine, love, salvation.
It could, you know. That’s why we wake

 and look out — no guarantees

 in this life.
But some bonuses, like morning,

 like right now, like noon,

 like evening. 
Yes!
-William Stafford

At times, our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

 

 – Albert Schweitzer

chances are something you give yourself. – The Universe (TUT)

It was a long time ago. 

I have almost forgotten my dream. 

But it was there then, 

In front of me, 

Bright like a sun- 

My dream. 

And then the wall rose, 

Rose slowly, 

Slowly, 

Between me and my dream. 

Rose until it touched the sky- 

The wall. 

Shadow. 

I am black. 

I lie down in the shadow. 

No longer the light of my dream before me, 

Above me. 

Only the thick wall. 

Only the shadow. 

My hands! 

My dark hands! 

Break through the wall! 

Find my dream! 

Help me to shatter this darkness, 

To smash this night, 

To break this shadow 

Into a thousand lights of sun, 

Into a thousand whirling dreams 

Of sun!

As I Grew Older by Langston Hughes

It’s a story as old as time itself

Girl meets boy

There they go

Falling in love
It’s an ending no tale wants to tell

Girl and boy

Drifting farther 

And farther apart
Now she lives in the house of broken dreams

pictures fade 

Time stands still

All the shadows standing in their places

Cracks appear

Clock feebly striking on through the gloom

As the tears fall down her face
It’s all just the way it all was then

Just the same as the day when life broke 

30 years ago

although lots of things have gathered

 into every available surface and corner

Dust falls down

Settling on fading glitter

Grime on glass 

Fogging up the window panes 

mold grows free 

covering years of freeform piles

She still smiles that painted smile

You can’t see the lonely spaces

when you meet her on the street

Life moves on and on without her

It’s illusion that you see
Because she lives in the house of broken dreams

pictures fade 

Time stands still

All the shadows standing in their places

Cracks appear

Clock strikes weakly at each hour

As the tears fall down her face
It’s the ending no reader wants to read

Girl and boy

Drifting farther 

And farther apart

until he leaves

and she fights 

to get something she can keep forever 

as she always dreamed it would be
Never letting go

Never moving on 

It’s the hardest part

Nobody wants to read this ending

This extreme dirty secret behind estate gates

stone lions eternally guarding 

heartbreak frozen in time

hoarding only she can stop

💨

Amy Lloyd (AL)

If you have a dream, don’t just sit there. Gather courage to believe that you can succeed and leave no stone unturned to make it a reality.

– Roopleen

“I have a firm belief in this now, not only in terms of my own experience, but in knowing the experiences of other people. When you follow your bliss, and by bliss I mean the deep sense of being in it, and doing what the push is out of your own existence—it may not be fun, but it’s your bliss and there’s bliss behind pain too.
“You follow that and doors will open where there were no doors before, where you would not have thought there’d be doors, and where there wouldn’t be a door for anybody else.
“. . . And so I think the best thing I can say is to follow your bliss. If your bliss is just your fun and your excitement, you’re on the wrong track. I mean, you need instruction. Know where your bliss is. And that involves coming down to a deep place in yourself.”
Joseph Campbell, “The Hero’s Journey”


A New Thing  


I am learning a new thing

I am digging deep into my belief systems

My very foundation –

the thing I learned,

the thing I wanted,

from the very beginning. 

The very thing I have based every decision of my life on for 51 years,

has crumbled,

discovered hidden and rotten 

under every good thing I’ve attempted to build. 

I kept wonder why my fabulous additions 

kept falling down around my ears…

now I see the gaping ground fault,

the illusive, sinking sand,

which I must release and repair. 

It’s very difficult. 

It’s extremely frightening. 

It’s supremely challenging. 

My new thing goes against the grain 

of everything I’ve ever thought, 

dreamed,

done…

since my very earliest childhood memories. 

It’s been so very expensive. 

Life built. 

Time spent. 

Dreams bent. 

All washing away

as I open my hands and allow 

a new firm foundation 

to be built

as the levee breaks 

and carries the remaining sinking sand 

forever away…

times…

they are a changing!




Blackness becomes you!  – Fred LaMotte   


At the end of your chanted path,

where the desert becomes the sea,

when you arrive your

songs are already here.

They greet you with silence

and you learn your name.

The rainbow curves toward darkness.

The surface of every sphere

tilts into its vacuum, pours

a golden yolk into raven wings.

Now make a new body of your brave

annihilation, weightless as a flame.

And tell me, dancing tongue of fire,

don’t you prefer the night?

Blackness becomes you.

🔥

Alfred K LaMotte


When the sooty corners of our dark night

absorb into porcelain skin at last

leaving it a whole new shade of refined

When the geese in their skeined wedge take another enchanted voyage across the endless blue

When we wake up to this new day 

loving life in spite of all that has gone before

When the one who loves us allows us joy in our exile

until we are ready to break our silent bread

When we allow the challenging heaviness of our limiting beliefs to enter into our arena wrestling until we have achieved Olympic gold

When we trust the great freedom of what has brought us to this very moment

When the wine of our heart 

in it’s purest burgundy of bubbling merry or deepest sorrow

pours clear and jeweled in its crushing

When we give away freely our best crimson to everyone we meet at this royal wedding 

When we finally recognize the truth that there is no journey of arriving

there is simply life

this grandest celebration of skin touching skin

the sharing of moments

the wonder of storytelling 

the ancient ancestral linage of our tree-relations  

the wonder of teaching and tasting and exploring 

coffee and kisses and learning any odd/old/new thing with the ones you love
then we have arrived at our true work 

the why we have sought so desperately to uncover for so long

lying crumpled and useless in the trash can

as we, a bit drunk, on our own exquisite vintage

make love to the world in blissful ecstasy 

shhhh…there are new songs playing 

listen…

just listen…

to that saxophone…

In this world

I’m so glad there is you

🎷

Amy Lloyd (AL)


No matter how dark the clouds seem, they are only clouds. The sun is always shining, the sky is always light blue. The clouds are just droplets of water, gathered together to tease people who don’t remember the truth.

– Chris Collins



https://vimeo.com/176370337?ref=em-share

what if? 


Let’s remake the world with words.

Not frivolously, nor

To hide from what we fear,

But with a purpose.

                                Let’s, 

As Wordsworth said, remove

“The dust of custom” so things

Shine again, each object arrayed

In its robe of original light.

And then we’ll see the world

As if for the first time.

As once we gazed at the beloved

Who was gazing at us.

🌎

Untitled [“Let’s remake the world with words”] by Gregory Orr


what if you tried something new?

what if you just threw away the rule book and trusted your gut?

what if you allowed someone in to help you, even for a minute?

what if you stopped defending your territory and absorbed some love?

what if you decided to let unexpeted things be the right timing?

what if you created a world where everybody belonged?

what if it’s really just about finding beauty and allowing beauty to find us?

what if you saw that no one is more valuable than another? 

what if you knew, for sure, you are royal, and so am I?

what if you treated everyone you encounter with that assumption?

what if, every single time you wanted to, you made the phone call?

what if, every time you didn’t want to, you didn’t?

what if you began doing all the things you are dreaming of today?

what if these things simple things are all that truly matters? 

what if the future of the world hangs on this iridescent string wrapped loosely around your wrist?

what if you leave for the next great adventure tomorrow, on this earth, or beyond?

what if you ask yourself these things every morning,

out in that field beyond right and wrong?
🌳

Amy Lloyd (AL)


quest for that shade of blue


When the light lessens,

Causing colors to lose their courage,

And your eyes fix on the empty distance

That can open on either side

Of the surest line

To make all that is

Familiar and near

Seem suddenly foreign,
When the music of talk

Breaks apart into noise

And you hear your heart louden

While the voices around you

Slow down to leaden echoes

Turning the silence Into something stony and cold,
When the old ghosts come back

To feed on everywhere you felt sure,

Do not strengthen their hunger

By choosing to fear;

Rather, decide to call on your heart

That it may grow clear and free

To welcome home your emptiness 

That it may cleanse you

Like the clearest air

You could ever breathe. 
Allow your loneliness time

To dissolve the shell of dross

That had closed around you;

Choose in this severe silence

To hear the one true voice

Your rushed life fears;

Cradle yourself like a child

Learning to trust what emerges,

So that gradually 

You may come to know
That deep in that black hole 

You will find the blue flower

That holds the mystical light 

Which will illuminate in you

The glimmer of springtime. 

💙

A Blessing for Loneliness by John O’Donohue  


Alone and lost

    at the edge

    of an ocean

    of memories,
    a heart of the deepest blue

        beats

    to the slow monotony

    of a swaying metronome;
found in the crashing waves

    of a dark desolate shore.

 
The weeping wind,

    with its hidden whispers,

    murmurs her name;
as nights they walked

    hand in hand
        flashback into view.
Haunting the torn fabric of his soul.

💔

Shipwrecked heart by AllPoetry member, Halosonthemoon

read the rest here: http://ow.ly/eO4E302oGFH


when I ride the nights ragged hours

when my loneliness rages with ruthless, restless, too warm turning 

when heaven is that smudge of light

seen beside the farthest star

when sleep is torn from my hungry grasp

and I am left without an inch of satisfaction 

from the feathers beneath my head

when I open my eyes to the same shade of black

I see with them closed

then I feel the disappearance of my desire to conform

my self is borderless at 3 am

my pretensions dissolve into this dark

I surrender to my grief

as well as to my hope

I swim to the other end of the bed

to cooler pastures

I visit the sheep 

living among the stuff 

down there

I listen as they recited the 23rd Psalm 

to reassure my nervous entering

in that strange world

I hear all the sounds from this new dimension 

my mind takes on the shape of new perspective 

alert to this unusual adventure 

I cry a little

laugh a little

think about the glory of love

the world turns on its axis

I breath free

I fly home

💞

AL


I am a sheep

and I like it

because the grass

I lie down in

feels good and the still

waters are restful and right

there if I’m thirsty

and though some valleys

are very chilly there is a long

rod that prods me so I

direct my hooves

the right way

though today

I’m trying hard

to sit at a table

because it’s expected

required really

and my enemies—

it turns out I have enemies—

are watching me eat and

spill my drink

but I don’t worry because

all my enemies do

is watch and I know

I’m safe if I will

just do my best

as I sit on this chair

that wobbles a bit

in the grass

on the side of a hill.

🐏

Here In The Psalm by Sally Fisher


Your great mistake is to act the drama

as if you were alone. As if life

were a progressive and cunning crime

with no witness to the tiny hidden

transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny

the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,

even you, at times, have felt the grand array;

the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding

out your solo voice You must note

the way the soap dish enables you,

or the window latch grants you freedom.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

The stairs are your mentor of things

to come, the doors have always been there

to frighten you and invite you,

and the tiny speaker in the phone

is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into

the conversation. The kettle is singing

even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

have left their arrogant aloofness and

seen the good in you at last. All the birds

and creatures of the world are unutterably

themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

🌎

Everything is Waiting for You by David Whyte

from Everything is Waiting for You

©2003 Many Rivers Press


photo sources found at pinterest.com


bits and pieces 

I gave myself permission to feel and experience all of my emotions. In order to do that, I had to stop being afraid to feel. In order to do that, I taught myself to believe that no matter what I felt or what happened when I felt it, I would be okay.     – Iyanla Vanzant


I have walked through many lives,

some of them my own,

and I am not who I was,

though some principle of being

abides, from which I struggle

not to stray.

When I look behind,

as I am compelled to look

before I can gather strength

to proceed on my journey,

I see the milestones dwindling

toward the horizon

and the slow fires trailing

from the abandoned camp-sites,

over which scavenger angels

wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe

out of my true affections,

and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled

to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind

the manic dust of my friends,

those who fell along the way,

bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn,

exulting somewhat,

with my will intact to go

wherever I need to go,

and every stone on the road

precious to me.

In my darkest night,

when the moon was covered

and I roamed through wreckage,

a nimbus-clouded voice

directed me:

“Live in the layers,

not on the litter.”

Though I lack the art

to decipher it,

no doubt the next chapter

in my book of transformations

is already written.

📝

The Layers by Stanley Kunitz


there are people and places

which live inside me

I feel them 

as I spin the kaleidoscope wheel

they come into focus

moments 

smells

textures

visuals

each hold exquisite love

each hold delicately intense, brutal, suffering 

each hold ruthless trust,

radical hope,

extreme faith,

continual healing. 

each person,

each place a threshold 

of practical practice,

of growth and becoming,

of wrestling with letting go,

of spiritual teaching towards love,

of defending my tenderness,

of stepping into ‘I am’,

of allowing myself,

of removing the toxic tarter buildup of my own soul,

of seeing glimpses of the unlimited, ever-unfolding mystery. 

I’m so grateful for these people,

these places,

the ones I carry,

seen,

and those still before me,

as yet, unseen. 

🕘

AL

Just past dawn, the sun stands

with its heavy red head

in a black stanchion of trees,

waiting for someone to come

with his bucket

for the foamy white light,

and then a long day in the pasture.

I too spend my days grazing,

feasting on every green moment

till darkness calls,

and with the others

I walk away into the night,

swinging the little tin bell

of my name. 

🔔

Birthday Poem by Ted Kooser

otters and birthdays and glimpses of the mystery   


Yeah, so, the past month has been an intense one for me in every way. A bit emotionally brutal. We can all relate, I’m sure. It’s shown me a lot of new things about myself, also revealed some new glimpses of this mystical mystery named, so simply, “Love,” in our language. 

I’ve been a student of the nature of Love for the past 7 years, which doesn’t seem very long, now that I write it down, but, I have to report, just this short time of study, it has changed me in every area of my life. 

My studies are always, first and foremost, practical. To me nothing I ‘believe’ is worth anything if it does not actually work in my living to bring me healing, make me a better human, remove my baggage to reveal my highest and best self, lead me into paths of peace and load my arms with fruit to share with fellow pilgrims along the way…and, so, I began by asking God to reveal what love was and how love worked. 

My first flash came in 2009, riding on a CT commuter train from New Haven to Branford, looking at the marsh fly by. I had been asking for some days, intensely seeking, when God showed himself to me as ‘LOVE.’ That brief instant changed everything for me. I experienced the Aleph of The Mystery and left that train, completely changed a flash or, in real time less than 30 minutes…

Many wonderful writers have helped me along this open-ended, unlimited path of discovery on this topic. I must give much beautiful credit to Henri Nouwen, who helped me early on in my excavation of this topic. His revelations, and life surrendered to this mystery, have inspired much learning in my own voyage on this simple, yet so radical, path. 

Over these years, I felt lead to share some of my tiny bits of insight with others – it has just been so amazing! So beautiful! So everything – I just wanted others to open to it as well, to learn and heal along with me!  Over these years I have learned to be a writer and a poet. Until recently I didn’t feel I could claim those ‘titles,’ but I do now, just another way love has changed me. I am so grateful. 

This brings us to yesterday, which brings us to Frederick Buechner’s 90th birthday! Buechner is one of the best, most beautiful, writers ever. Sometimes I stop breathing when I read his words. I won’t say more, at this moment, as this is becoming a very long post, but here’s my best advice: read him! 

Recently someone, somewhere, on Facebook, posted words by poet, Fred LaMotte. They deeply touched me and so I ‘friended’ him. Then he began posting his words and I found myself on Amazon ordering one of his books. I received it last week, and it has been moving me into some very deep waters. 

Yeah, so, back to yesterday, I re-posted a happy birthday write-up about Buechner and then…

I got this comment from Fred LaMotte:

He was the reason I became a teacher and a school chaplain. When I was a 10th grader at Exeter Academy (near Boston) he was the school chaplain. It was before he became a writer. One dreary morning in late Winter, we were 700 half asleep boys in morning ‘Chapel’ (it was just an assembly really), and decided to read to us. He read the entire 7th chapter of ‘The Wind In The Willows,’ ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn.’ It was very long and I think I might have been the only one stayed awake. It was amazing. Not only did it show me my first real piece of spiritual writing, but I thought, “Wow! This is his job? Reading to people about the great God Pan? I want to do this!” Thank you Frederick Buechner.

💞

WOW!! Then Fred LaMotte shared that chapter of the Wind and the Willows, ya know, the one that inspired some pretty intense poetry, which is, at this moment plowing up some new fields in my back forty…

Wow upon WOW!

Here’s that link. My advice: Read it!! 

http://yourradiance.blogspot.com/2013/03/piper-at-gates-of-dawn.html?m=1

I have not read The Wind in the Willows since I was a teenager, and, at that time I remember thinking it was rather stupid. My thoughts being something like, ‘Good grief, what in the heck is this about?’ 

Yesterday, I finally ‘got it!’ I broke down. I took my shoes off and bowed to the glory. Yesterday, a gift of love I offered was returned to me, unaccepted. I ‘got it!’ I broke down. I took my shoes off and bowed to the glory. There’s no right or wrong here, just gift. I choose to be only grateful to continue on in the, ‘yes and amen!’ of it all. 

I have no idea what Love (God) will teach me next. I am a very humble beginner. No Master here. Just a girl who cannot believe how lucky I am to be on this narrow road. A very unlikely pilgrim, I. Always wearing inappropriate shoes for climbing these steep hills, but somehow, always getting the view of the most beautiful sunsets imaginable. I guess it’s true what Babe Ruth said, ‘You can’t beat a man who keeps getting up!’

Here’s a song I wrote for my children’s musical about my life of faith, named: The Fantastical Inside-Out-Upside-Down Journey of a Rich Little Poor Girl 


 You Otter Know (verses spoken in the style of Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked by Cage the Elephant/choruses in Sinatra style)

I was walking in the forest 

I was feeling all alone

The birds and bees were sleeping,

the weeping willow weeping
Then I heard a little creature

Start moving oh so slow

and the little brook began to play

music with its toes

the woodpecker was keeping time

upon that tall oak tree

and I could not help start dancing

cause I knew it was for me

and as I whirled and twirled about 

I came upon a log

and the beaver and the otter (Frank Sinatra style Beaver. Sammy Davis Otter)  

were acting more like hogs (pushing each other to get to the log stage with microphone) 

and then they each began to croon

they’re words were oh so rare

I stood there for a moment

my foot still in the air
and they sang to me…
You otter know I love you

loved you from the start

(if you’ll beaver me

then I’ll beaver you

You never walk alone)

You otter know I love you

love your precious heart

(beaver me it’s true

I’ve always loved you

You’re never far from home)
and the band it just kept playing

and my happy heart did gasp

Cause this was so much better

than that silly talking a** 

uhhh donkey
Then my heart it felt so happy

and my eyes at last could see

That though I hadn’t been aware

You’d never once left me

and as I danced on down that path

 I swear I sang this song

The one my friends had written,

which had been there all along
and I sang…
You otter know I love you

loved you from the start

(if you’ll beaver me

then I’ll beaver you

You never walk alone)

You otter know I love you

love your precious heart

(beaver me it’s true

I’ve always loved you

You’re never far from home

💞

AL

Ephesians 1:4

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.  

New Living Translation




You don’t have to melt

until you are ready. 

Remember this:
Each moil of your unoiled joints,

every numb stiff gristle of resistance,

cramp of anger, clabber of shame,
clot of envy, opinion or belief,

is simply a mass of refusal

contracted into “me,”
a particle afraid to waltz

with its field, a wave

that will not settle to its sea,
a sky who thinks it is a cloud,

a self who didn’t give up

I-dentity…
Don’t let go until you’re

ready, friend. You have forever. 

You remember this:
To melt is not to pass away,

but to pulverize diamonds 

with your dancing,
watch the spiraling fire

of your body, and witness

the whirled. 

🔥

Alfred K. LaMotte


Some mornings 

I wake up a king,

anointed, anticipated,

shining.
Some mornings

I wake up a pilgrim,

on a journey yet unseen,

but on a road laid out

with adventures to be met.
Some mornings 

I wake up a mule.

No power to wield,

nowhere to go,

just me, just here,

dull and pointless.
Those days

I must be 

most vigilant and ready,

for my master 

is a good samaritan

and I never know

when I will be needed

for something luminous.

__________________  

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net


photo sources found at http://www.pinterest.com

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