life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “beloved”

02 May 2016
1 Comment

blowing in the wind


And you have only just now

accepted the grace!

These fragments of your life,

the broken lines,

the missing phrases,

endings that don’t quite

rhyme, beginnings

that die in non sequitur,

stillborn ellipses

of awkward syntax

silently holding hands 

as you disappear

around corners together

alone again, until

suddenly it falls 

into place

as a single poem

needing no interpretation

because the mystery

of your beauty fills

all its empty spaces…

☺️

Fred LaMotte


Good poetry begins with

the lightest touch,

a breeze arriving from nowhere,

a whispered healing arrival,

a word in your ear,

a settling into things,

then like a hand in the dark

it arrests the whole body,

steeling you for revelation.
In the silence that follows

a great line

you can feel Lazarus

deep inside

even the laziest, most deathly afraid

part of you,

lift up his hands and walk toward the light.
☄

  The Lightest Touch by David Whyte

Posted in awareness, balance, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, find art at pinterest, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, Poetry, transformation, Trust, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com
01 May 2016

what if?


May this be a morning of innocent beginning,

 When the gift within you slips clear 

 Of the sticky web of the personal

 With its hurt and hauntings,

 And fixed fortress corners,
A morning when you become a pure vessel

 For what wants to ascend from silence,
May your imagination know

 The grace of perfect danger,
To reach beyond imitation,

 And the wheel of repetition,
Deep into the call of all 

 The unfinished and unsolved
Until the veil of the unknown yields

 And something original begins 

 To stir toward your senses

 And grow stronger in your heart… 

💞

John O’Donohue
Excerpt from, ‘For the Artist at the Start of Day’

 BENEDICTUS (Europe) / TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US (US)


…quietly just now, just one word:

Believe. 

Believe the best.

Believe the hard is being worked out for good.

Believe the best is still to come. 

Believe in the One who is Best.

Believe. [Mark9:23]

💞

   Ann Voskamp @ aholyexperience.com



Posted in Adventure, art, attitude, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beliefs, beloved, Blessing, Choice, confidence, connection, courage, create, Faith, find art at pinterest, Imagine, inspiration, Life, Love, mystery, Poetry | Leave a comment
30 Apr 2016

graceful surrender


Start close in,

don’t take the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step

you don’t want to take.
Start with

the ground

you know,

the pale ground

beneath your feet,

your own

way to begin

the conversation.
Start with your own

question,

give up on other

people’s questions,

don’t let them

smother something

simple.
To hear

another’s voice,

follow

your own voice,

wait until

that voice

becomes an

intimate

private ear

that can 

then

really listen

to another.
Start right now

take a small step

you can call your own

don’t follow

someone else’s

heroics, be humble

and focused,

start close in,

don’t mistake

that other

for your own.
Start close in,

don’t take

the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step

you don’t want to take.
…

START CLOSE IN by David Whyte


Days of wine and focus

of hanging on

of staying strong

of keeping faith

of sitting still

of being silent

of standing in my own shoes

of letting go 

of allowing the mystery

of hearing the call

of accepting what is

of not crossing borders or boundaries

of opening and opening

of trusting the journey

of seeing the face of God

of surrender into something bigger than I can know

of making the daily commitment

of acknowledging the grace

of thanking for everything

of looking for the miracles

of talking to trees

of taking time to prepare

of expressing my thanks

of helping in time of need

of following my own path

of obedience rather than sacrifice

of love and love and love

of all things love

💞

AL


Posted in action, Adventure, awareness, balance, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, confidence, connection, courage, find art at pinterest, healing, intimacy, Joy, Life, Love, soul and spirit, strength, transformation, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
22 Apr 2016

love came calling

 

 
Love came to tell me,

‘there is nothing that does not include me…

from your breath

to the neighbor 

who is hard to ‘tolerate.’

Everything is love

it’s all connected

it’s all life’s about

So, Love came to call,

to tell me,

to make sure I truly understood, 

what love looks like. 

The real thing

is costly,

is all powerful,

all encompassing. 

Yes, love came 

and stayed,

whispering in my ear,

every damn day

reminding me,

‘There is nothing

that does not include me…

nothing’

😘

AL

 

 

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, compassion, confidence, connection, Faith, find art at pinterest, grace, Hope, Letting Go, Life, Love | Leave a comment
21 Apr 2016

love o’ my heart 

  
I will make you brooches 

and toys for your delight

Of bird-song at morning 

and star-shine at night.

I will make a palace fit for you and me

Of green days in forests 

and blue days at sea.

I will make my kitchen, 

and you shall keep your room,

Where white flows the river 

and bright blows the broom,

And you shall wash your linen 

and keep your body white

In rainfall at morning 

and dewfall at night.

And this shall be for music 

when no one else is near,

The fine song for singing, 

the rare song to hear!

That only I remember, 

that only you admire,

Of the broad road that stretches 

and the roadside fire.

🌺

I Will Make You Brooches by Robert Louis Stevenson

 

 This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.  
🌸

         – Rumi

  

Kiss me. Kiss me as if it were the last time.  

💋

    – Ilsa Lund, Casablanca

Posted in Adventure, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Choice, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, Uncategorized | Leave a comment
20 Apr 2016

goodness runs wild everywhere 


Too bad you weren’t here six months ago,

was a lament I heard on my visit to Nebraska.

You could have seen the astonishing spectacle

of the sandhill cranes,

thousands of them

feeding and even dancing

on the shores of the Platte River.

There was no point in pointing out

the impossibility of my being there then

because I happened to be somewhere else,

so I nodded and put on a look of mild disappointment

if only to be part of the commiseration.

 

It was the same look I remember wearing

about six months ago in Georgia

when I was told that I had just missed

the spectacular annual outburst of azaleas,

brilliant against the green backdrop of spring

 

and the same in Vermont six months before that

when I arrived shortly after

the magnificent foliage had gloriously peaked,

Mother Nature,

as she is called,

having touched the hills with her many-colored brush,

a phenomenon that occurs,

like the others,

around the same time every year when I am apparently off

in another state,

stuck in a motel lobby

with the local paper and a styrofoam cup of coffee,

busily missing God knows what.

☕️
The Sandhill Cranes of Nebraska by Billy Collins

On vacation I witnessed
birds and whales

that had traveled farther than I.
They take with them

their memories, their songs

and the sacred longing
that guides their migrations,

that leads me

in all my rambling,
the silent knowing

that seems like hunger,

seems like not knowing,
the sure desultory path

that is life, the way

that is the blessing,
the holy wandering

to life that awaits,

always toward you.
__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blessing, Choice, connection, courage, find art at pinterest, Freedom, Gratitude, Habits, Happiness, Love, Miracles, mystery, nature, Poetry, Reality | Leave a comment
17 Apr 2016

again and again

  
This world doesn’t improve by demanding perfection. It improves when we reach through our armor and touch another with tenderness. It improves when we bust through the walls of our conditioning, and try a new way of being on for size. It improves when we work through our unresolved shadow and share what little light we can find. It is the small, positive steps that we take when we are at war with ourselves that change the world.

   – Jeff Brown 

awe…

examination…

it keeps appearing 

again…

I delete…

and again…

I delete…

and again

haven’t I already written this poem?

haven’t I already done that before?

What is left…

that I don’t know…

that I haven’t taken out…

haven’t examined properly?

There are always more layers

An onion…revealing more onion

layers…

upon layers…

illusions,

shadows,

truth left to excavate,

healing to be won,

motivations to uncover,

mystery to be discovered,

always more. 

God keeps getting bigger

as I examine,

I reduce,

I open. 

help me to stay in this mode of learning…

growth…

humble me…

soften me…

my best self emerges within this process

send it again…

remind me again…

💞

AL

   
 
  

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, connection, courage, find art at pinterest, healing, inspiration, intimacy, Letting Go, Love, mystery, Patience, power, Prayer | Leave a comment
12 Apr 2016

them bones… them dry dry bones

  
Around 15 years ago now

I took a business trip 

Somewhere in the middle of Florida

I was hostess for a community meeting

to talk about a new electrical line route and sub-station 

proposed for this area

by the electric company I worked for at the time

I was with a team 

We stayed in a local bed and breakfast

I had breakfast with a married couple 

from somewhere west of Orlando,

can’t remember the town,

who were prophets of God. 

Don’t ask me how I know,

I just do. 

I was still learning to open to mystery

(my fundamental Baptist background 

was being constantly challenged)

and I was early in my ‘testing’ to find out if God was really real,

I was early in my healing from the abuse, 

shattering and loss I had gone through in the past years of my life. 

Then, somehow, this couple and I were alone together –

the rest of the team out checking out the project route. 

I ended up in their room.

I told them some of my story. 

I sang for them. 

They prayed over me,

anointed me with oil,

proclaimed and prophesied my future. 

They wrote prophesy down on paper,

then burned it in the fireplace. 

It was all a little weird and surreal,

more than a little scary,

and yet I knew they were sent there, 

at that very place and time,

because God sent them there for me. 

I do not know their names,

I never saw them again,

the business card they left me had a number which was not active – 

Curiosity made me call that number a few weeks later. 

Number not in service. 

I never told anyone about this. 

It was a very strange episode I kinda ignored. 

I’ve never spoken, or written, about it since,

until now,

all these years later. 

It keeps coming back to me lately,

since I recently spent an unexpected evening with 

one of those project team members I was traveling with on that fateful trip.

I still don’t understand it,

but I am grateful,

I realize how far God’s grace has lead me 

since the day of my unexpected, mysterious, anointing. 

❣

AL

  
  
  

Posted in awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, courage, find art at pinterest, Impossible, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, Poetry, power | Leave a comment
08 Apr 2016
1 Comment

My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.   – Hank Aaron 

 

Blessed be the longing that brought you here

 And quickens your soul with wonder.
May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire

 That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe. 
May you have the wisdom to enter generously into

 your own unease

 To discover the new direction your longing wants

 you to take. 
May the forms of your belonging — in love, creativity 

 and friendship —

 Be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul. 

⚾️

  – John O’Donohue

 

there’s so much more to me 😊
than the color of my eyes 👁👁
the curve of my lips 👄
I am full of wild:
flowers 🌸
and 
fires 🔥
/
desire 😈
and 
laughter😄
/
passion 💃🏻
and
purpose 📚
the natural cravings of life:
love ❤️
and 
touch 🖐🏼
/
home 🏡
and 
protection 💪
/
to be fully known 
and
accepted
I carry in my bones:
music 🎼
and
poems ✏️
/
pain 🙁
and 
sorrow 😢
/
healing 💝
and 
hope 💓
I ache with the need to share:
darkness 🌓
and 
light 🌗
/
work 👷🏼
and 
play 💑
/
faith 🙏🏻
and
friendship 👫
I think about you all the time 😍
today I wonder…
what happens next? ⁉️
only time will tell 🕰

❣

AL

   

Posted in Becoming Yourself, Beginning, beloved, Letting Go, Life, Love
07 Apr 2016

pieces & parts 

 

The teacher asks a question.

You know the answer, 

you suspect

you are the only one in the classroom

who knows the answer, 

because the person

in question is yourself, 

and on that

you are the greatest living authority,

but you don’t raise your hand.

You raise the top of your desk

and take out an apple.

You look out the window.

You don’t raise your hand and there is

some essential beauty in your fingers,

which aren’t even drumming,

 but lie

flat and peaceful.

🙏🏻

The Hand by Mary Ruefle

 

 I try to clean up
pick up pieces of myself

from all over the frozen ground

Who knew hearts can turn into

Slivers of glass

dangerous to handle

Slice my fingers

I rub tears from my eyes

and find toxic rivers

Red flows 

Staining all of life

Small killing shards everywhere

Thousands

Maybe millions

They stick to the inside of my chest

My throat

Puncture my lungs

Settle in my stomach 

as I try to eat breakfast 

It’s getting harder and harder to speak

To breathe

To stand

I fall face first into a pool 

Of freezing water

The glass becomes ice 

Eventually I crawl out of the water

but the ice remains 

a solid block I live with

for 9 years 

Containment my highest priority

Walking dead 

until that box breaks open

I begin to grieve

and begin slowly melting 

Fusing shattered pieces

absorbing them into 

the fabric of my living

Im still working on it

Still looking for the fire of love

to refine the gold

Scars show the hearts broken places

for glimmers of light to shine through

As grieving does it’s healing work

And I become human 

Once again

❤️

AL

   

   
  
  

 

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, connection, courage, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, friendship, Grieving, Growth, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love | Leave a comment

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