Blessing | life: acoustic & amplified

Archive for the category “Blessing”

03 Dec 2015

timing be everything…just wait and see

walking while waiting…not holding onto the breath…finding the shallow end of the pool, gliding full body under the water…raising expectations while others wonder , slightly wandering , forgetting to remember is not an option while the day is so bright…finding fashion foolishly delightful, while taking ones shoes off …holy hours become …earth and flesh blown open , .birthing beyond time and space, then settling into the sunroom for hot peach tea and a tiny croissant…such a simple remedy while walking and waiting…
Beauty,

Donna Knutson

Posted in attitude, awareness, beloved, Blessing, Change, Choice, commitment, connection, courage, determination, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Growth, Habits, Happiness, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, nature, Patience, soul and spirit, strength, touch, Trust, truth, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

23 Nov 2015

I am so much more than I ever thought I was – Sherri Yerkes (speaking from the heart)

So several weeks ago now, Robin Ok called to connect on the upcoming Creative Collaborative Retreat 2015.

http://www.creativecollaborativeretreats.com

I still remember her words, “I signed you up for some things that you can say ‘no’ to these if you want….

How exciting! My heart already was saying a great, big, fat ‘yes’ – before I even heard the list, which ended with a session on poetry!

Oh joy!!! YES!!! Ideas poured in…

The retreat weekend came – 13-15 of this month and it was everything, and more, than expected!

Beautiful, powerful, connecting, art-full, musical, spiritual, abundant, accepting, empowering – on-and-on I can, and will, go. I was overwhelmed with love and joy on many levels, but my greatest bit of on-going-bursting-out-all-over joy is from my poetry session.

New words were framed, created, brought out of heart-hiding into beings of light, onto old inspiring paper and into the hearts reading and listening. We shared our poems at the end of the hour – no one left with dry hearts or eyes.

Poems (words) are living things. They touch us, heal us, bring us joy and create space inside us as we bring forward what was inside and allow new thoughts to be born, creativity always creates anew inside and outside of ourselves. We give to receive and in receiving we give back again.

This magic has taken root in some great and powerful ways, I am so amazed at the beauty, the power, the courage, the immensity of these poets – new and seasoned veterans – all old souls.

I am so grateful to have been able to share this session, which helped connect these amazing, gifted women with their inner, living, beautiful poetry. I believe poetry lives inside each of us. The need for beauty is essential for us to live, discovering, excavating that beauty is our life-long, ever-changing, most-challenging and surprising gift.

Check out Barbara Endel’s new, amazing poetry blog –

https://poetintrainingblog.wordpress.com

🔥

This poem came to me yesterday…kinda summed it all up:

Our poems

Are like the wart-hogs

In the zoo

It’s hard to say

Why there should be such creatures
But once our life gets into them

As sometimes happens

Our poems

Turn into living things

And there’s no arguing

With living things

They are

The way they are
Our poems

May be rough

Or delicate

Little

Or great
But always

They have inside them

A confluence of cries

And secret languages
And always

They are improvident

And free

They keep

A kind of Sabbath
They play

On sooty fire escapes

And window ledges
They wander in and out

Of jails and gardens

They sparkle

In the deep mines

They sing

In breaking waves

And rock like wooden cradles.

💞

Living Things by Anne Porter

Living in astonished and passionate gratitude for each of you. Thank you for allowing me to inspire you…thank you for inspiring me!

If you do nothing Nothing will be done.

Sounds like we should know this,

right?

It’s just fascinating to me to see

the result of a decision to create a newsletter dedicated to good news,

then to commit to creating that publication for one full year.

8 full years later,

as I ended that project,

to make way for new projects,

there were over 135 issues

on a website devoted to that good-news thing.

4 years ago I decided to begin a daily poetry and quotes blog,

I now have almost 2000 blog posts.

December 2012, I committed to a poem a day.

11 months later,

I had over 700 poems written.

It’s crazy cool!

And it has been a huge lesson to me,

Dreams and Ideas are great,

but only the commitment, focus

and actually acting on the idea,

will call it forth into the world.

All those words, ideas and poems would still be inside me somewhere,

if I had not said, yes, to DOING it.

Nothing gets done without the work.

Intention and action go together

in order to build the house,

in order to change the world.

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blessing, Blog, Choice, connection, courage, create, Encouragement, Faith, Gratitude, Growth, Habits, Happiness, inspiration, intimacy | Leave a comment

22 Nov 2015

a graceful feeling

Anything that you learn becomes your wealth, a wealth that cannot be taken away from you; whether you learn it in a building called school or in the school of life. To learn something new is a timeless pleasure and a valuable treasure. And not all things that you learn are taught to you, but many things that you learn you realize you have taught yourself.

― C. JoyBell

I spent my weekend with my amazing friends, Kitt, Mike, Rebecca and Christian Haberman, in Louisville.

I sum this powerful time of connection and sharing with this:

I learned things. Lots of beautiful things. Things I will have with me always. (Happy Sigh) I am so grateful for all of the great people I have in my life.

I stayed in the room below (Lesley Haberman being all grown up and off in college) and got ready with these messages before me, reminding me, filling my heart. Messages written by a beautiful, teenage girl to remind herself….remember…remember..

💞

Thank you, Lesley, thank you Haberman Family. Love is so very good to us!

What a beautiful world…

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, be, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blessing, Choice, commitment, community, connection, courage, determination, Encouragement, Faith, Freedom, friendship, grace, Gratitude, Growth, Habits, Happiness, healing, inspiration, Life, Love | Leave a comment

18 Nov 2015

some things are sad

 Every now and then we leave off our pious yearnings,

and even our righteous ire,

and sit down to the hard work  of being sad for the world.

It takes guts,

God knows—

not anger but sorrow;

it tires prophets and psalmists alike.

The wolf that cries in the long valley,

the sea that chants its lament

over and over with sighs and tears,

the hermit on sore knees,

 the angels at their posts

taking turns offering up their  aching hearts,

even Christ weeping,

they can’t do it alone.

In the end

it is  the broken hearted

in whom we find  the deepest companionship.

We come away wet with grief

yet oddly strengthened

with the fibers of hope.

In grief for the world

we touch its worth.

In sorrow we find each other,

and there,

the substance of joy.

Weird, isn’t it,

how that alone

is the healing balm we ask?    __________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

“Only he who cries… is permitted to sing…” is what Bonhoeffer said.
Only those authentic enough to lament, are authentic enough to love.
When everything is stripped away and you have nothing left and in all your bare vulnerability, there is communion with God.

– Ann Voskamp

💙

I am bare naked

Down to my bones

Even my comfortable skin is gone

I shiver as the cold blows through me

I have cried many tears

My song has been watered to full growth

Being alive does not come without cost

We love

we lose

we grieve

We lament

We love

We commune

We learn

We choose

to continue to make the choices

to love

to bring the song

that fills spring with joy

and the whole world

With light and love
AL

Posted in attitude, awareness, be, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blessing, Change, Choice, connection, courage, Grieving, Growth, Habits, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, music | Leave a comment

12 Nov 2015

what sacrifice?

how can you call it a sacrifice when you do it willingly because you believe in it? – Aung San Suu Kyi

I am this morning meadow

into which you pour yourself.
I am the still air

in which you rise, a mountain, huge.
I am this city street

which you walk, a crowd

with your stories, your nations.
I am this bird

and you are flight, and song.
I am the ocean

and you are my water.
I am the desert

and you are my stillness.
I am this heart

and you are my beating.
You are this day

into which you pour me,

breath by breath.
Together,

we are this life.
__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

there is no cage

love must be stepped into

freely.

there is no withholding

love gives it all away.

there is no have to’s

love must be given and received willingly.

there is no selfish motive

love always wants the highest and best for the other person.

there are no ‘no’s’

love always says yes.

love takes commitment.

it is not an easy job,

both parties –

equal and

100 percent in it.

you must choose what you want,

along with the consequences of those choices.

Just know, for sure,

love will always set you free

there is no fear in love

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beliefs, beloved, Blessing, Choice, commitment, connection, courage, determination, do, find art at pinterest, Gratitude, healing, intimacy, Joy, Judging, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, Passion, power | Leave a comment

11 Nov 2015

when you’re ready

Again I resume the long
lesson: how small a thing

can be pleasing, how little

in this hard world it takes

to satisfy the mind

and bring it to its rest.
With the ongoing havoc

the woods this morning is

almost unnaturally still.

Through stalled air, unshadowed

light, a few leaves fall

of their own weight.
The sky

is gray. It begins in mist

almost at the ground

and rises forever. The trees

rise in silence almost

natural, but not quite,

almost eternal, but

not quite.
What more did I

think I wanted? Here is

what has always been.

Here is what will always

be. Even in me,

the Maker of all this

returns in rest, even

to the slightest of His works,

a yellow leaf slowly

falling, and is pleased.

💜

Sabbaths 1999, VII by Wendell Berry

The sky in my rearview

is a huge bowl of rainbow sherbet

the beautiful kind

with raspberry, orange-n-lime

swatches of lemon, indigo and periwinkle

float like barges –

in, out

around.

Framing.

Dancing.

Living.

At one point tangerine fills the top of the hilly crest

and head light stars

blaze brilliant against the backdrop

indigo stretched above framing the masterpiece.

At times I find it hard to keep moving forward

into the matte gray of the sky just ahead.

so much loveliness is going on

right behind me

how can I keep heading away from it?

How can I not be a part of this splendor?

Eventually midnight blue seizes its moment of glory,

then night falls over all

and I am left

aching with the beauty,

the majesty,

the extravagant display,

of this wonderful world.

I go to wondering

if this longing for your kiss

will ever be answered?

if my whole life I will wait

for a moment which has already passed,

never to be again under this piece of sky.

always a whisper.

The magic of love,

a thing with wings

hovering over my heart

for years

echoing on into eternity.

💞

Posted in art, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blessing, Change, compassion, confidence, connection, courage, create, determination, find art at pinterest, Growth, Habits, Happiness, healing, laugh, Letting Go, Love, mystery, Passion, Patience, perceptions, Relationships | Leave a comment

25 Oct 2015

peep

Photo found on facebook

🍁

The rain breaks, though the sky is still grey, even so

The trees are drenched in golden glow,

leaves glistening like glowing emeralds, rubies, gold dripping in puddles to the ground,

there neon reds, pinks and oranges screaming for my attention like an extravert teenager in the 1980’s –

It is so beautiful it takes my breath away

I stop and stare for timeless time,

drinking it into my soul,

into my storehouse of these flaming glory-moments

Then I go on with my day,

full of wonder and hope

I heard it in your voice this morning

There are good things ahead

🍂

photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT

🍁

If we could,

like the trees,

practice dying,

do it every year

just as something we do—

like going on vacation

or celebrating birthdays,

it would become

as easy a part of us

as our hair or clothing.
Someone would show us how

to lie down and fade away

as if in deepest meditation,

and we would learn

about the fine dark emptiness,

both knowing it and not knowing it,

and coming back would be irrelevant.
Whatever it is the trees know

when they stand undone,

surprisingly intricate,

we need to know also

so we can allow

that last thing

to happen to us

as if it were only

any ordinary thing,
leaves and lives

falling away,

the spirit, complex,

waiting in the fine darkness

to learn which way

it will go.

🍂

Learning from Trees by Grace Butcher

🍂🍁🍂🍁🍂🍁🍂
There is no such thing in anyone’s life as an unimportant day.

-Alexander Woolcott

Posted in Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Blessing, Change, Choice, commitment, connection, Glory, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, nature, Relationships, Respect, Seasons | Leave a comment

23 Oct 2015

be brave

Most of the greatest achievements on the planet are unknown to others – private overcomings, silent attempts at belief, re-opening a shattered heart. The real path of champions truly lies within – the transforming of suffering into expansion, the clearing of horrifying debris, the building of a healthy self-concept without tools. The greatest achievers have found a way to believe in something good despite being traumatized and fractured on life’s battlefields. No matter what else they accomplish in their lives, they are already champions. One day the world will realize that it is much harder to heal a shattered heart than excel at athletics. Go(l)d medals all around…
– Jeff Brown

They have told you to be quiet

since your crib,

when your needs, your cry for the divine

disturbed them.

You too have learned the command,

to silence your soul, to silence others.

Stand still and listen:

what is the voice within, crying out, silenced?
Rise; take heart.

The Beloved is calling you,

wants to hear your plea,

to honor your word,

to hear what has not been spoken,

wants you to come,

to ask for what must be asked for

and must be given.
Now, you have been called

and you have been heard.

Whom have we silenced?

Whom are you called to call

to reveal

the miracle of God?

Rise, take heart.

The Beloved is calling you.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

In the space between breaths

It can be gone

A months worth of words

Erased with a fingertip

A 12, 30 even 60 year marriage over

With 4 words spoken:

I want a divorce

A home with all it’s possessions

Destroyed in a matter of minutes in the fury of nature –

Fire or storm

Life

So fragile

With no guarantees

Of longevity

Or comfort

Begs to be lived

Now

To be counted for the sake of goodness

This is the only moment that counts

Don’t wait

Take a deep

deep breath

of the spirit that is giving it all

There is only one thing eternal

Say thank you

For that one thing that will always remain

All else can be destroyed

But not this.

What is this eternal gift?

this one and only gift that remains, that matters?

You already know…

say it together now…

Love

💞

Listen to Gavin Rossdale sing Love Remains the Same

photos found at http://www.pinterest.com

Posted in attitude, awareness, be, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, Beliefs, beloved, Blessing, Change, Choice, commitment, courage, Encouragement, healing, Imagine, Letting Go, Life, Love | Leave a comment

20 Oct 2015

one step

The wasps outside

the kitchen window

are making that 

thick, unraveling sound  again,

floating in  and out

of the bald head  of their nest,

seeming not to move

while moving, 

and it has just occurred  to me,

standing,  washing the coffeepot,

watching them hang 

loosely in the air—

thin  wings;

thick, elongated  abdomens;

sad, down- pointing antennae—

that this  is the heart’s constant project:

this simple  learning;

learning  how to hold

hopelessness  and hope together;

to see on the unharmed  surface of one

the great scar  of the other;

to recognize  both

and to make  something of both;

to desire everything  and nothing

at once

and to desire it  all the time;

and to contain that desire  fleshly,

in a body;  to wash it and rest it

and feed it;

to learn  its name and from whence  it came;

and to speak  to it—oh,

most of all  to speak to it—

every day, every day, 

saying to one part,

“Well, maybe this is all  you get,”

while saying  to the other,

“Go on,  break it open, let it go.”
💞

Want by Carrie Fountain

Have you sat with grief?

Have you let it wring you dry?

Leave you swollen and exhausted

in it’s wake?

Allowed the pain from the inner depths of hell,

deeper than you knew existed,

to ooze out,

bubble up into your heart,

so that your tears could begin

to wash you clean?

Have you asked yourself

the questions with no answers?

then allow them to just co-exist with you,

allowing that life is good,

finding space for gratitude

even in the unanswerable?

Have you walked, and talked,

with death and your losses?

The innocence murdered

by anger and hate?

Precious time stolen

by monsters and ogres?

Hearts trampled

by words of violence and sarcasm?

Are you familiar with vulnerability?

With allowing your deepest feelings,

painful feelings,

raw feeling,

real feelings,

to come out of the grave

where you try to hide them?

Exposing your wounds,

old and new?

I know how hard it is,

I know.

I try to avoid it too.

I also know the truth.

It must be done.

It is the broken road to healing.

To life!

The more we feel,

the more we can feel.

Go deep, my friend

Open up wide.

Sit a spell and let it bubble.

Feel it all.

It will feel rotten for a while,

then comes the morning

you wake up good as new!

New and improved.

I promise you won’t regret it.

Just trust me on this one.

I am intimately familiar

with this process.

💔

😘
photos found at http://www.pinterest.com

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blessing, Change, Choice, compassion, connection, courage, force, grace, Grieving, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, soul and spirit, strength, touch, Trust, truth, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

15 Oct 2015

grace upon grace

Fall colors flash and burn

with yellows and reds,  orange

like flags,

their dead or dying leaves

spark pleasure in our eyes,

pour their colors out like cash

unmeasured into

yards and eaves and flower beds,

drop their gold  into the thirsty sky,

fling wide their treasures.

Why don’t I?

What would it be  to live with this

wild,  brilliant generosity,

this free release,

this warmth,

this  depth of color,

joy,  and loss?

🍁🍁🍁🍁  _____________________ Weather Report

Beauty, 

with the precipitation of things

falling out of our lives,

and in,

as the season’s bright allure,

once accumulated and condensed,

now dissipates,

leaving us the gentle loveliness

of letting go.

🍁🍁🍁🍁

__________________

 Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

🍁

top photo found at facebook/wayne dyer

bottom photos by fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT

🍁

the law of abundanceis everywhere

we think we need to tap into

the law of attraction

…think again…

the fruit falls off the trees for us

all we have to do is keep our hands open

🍁

Posted in awareness, beauty, beloved, Blessing, Change, Choice, connection | Leave a comment

life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Blessing”

timing be everything…just wait and see

I am so much more than I ever thought I was – Sherri Yerkes (speaking from the heart)

a graceful feeling

some things are sad

what sacrifice?

when you’re ready

peep

be brave

one step

grace upon grace

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