with a little love
Listen to Eric Clapton sing Let it Grow http://youtu.be/KXDf9UwHGF4
Photos: top by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT; bottom two found at www.pinterest.com
life: acoustic & amplified
poetry, quotes & thoughts about life
Archive for the category “courage”
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
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
The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die.— Friedrich Nietzsche
There are things that get blocked
by other things
and then the flow of things
from the source of things
seems to stop
and one thing non-flowing
effects other things downstream
Meanwhile life goes on
and many things remain flowing
But you always know somethings blocked
because there are the things
that you want to do…
that you think you need to do…
and you just can’t seem to do them…
and so it goes
until you find the source of the blockage
and remove it
and, once again,
things flow easy
with the rest of things…
I just heard Karate masters
don’t focus on the cinderblock –
to break through,
they focus on the space beyond the block…
AL
photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513
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
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
communication
the bright, glowing world opens my heart in beauty –
there’s this summer song
of cool wind on my skin,
playing sweet, soft percussion through the tall, lush marsh grass
gentle water laps at the sand
invisible birds singing in surround sound
visible ones splash and dive for breakfast
patient, yet very aware
my heart resonates with the language we have spoken
the songs we have sung
the rich vibrations of our connection
over the past months…
over the past two days…
today’s fresh sun warms my back
my shadow sits large
writing poems
this morning
this day
this moment
in silence birthing
my gratitude
my pleasure
my gift
my life
thank you
for being you,
for reaching out,
for holding my hand
and my heart 💞
AL
Listen to John Legend sing All of Me http://youtu.be/Mk7-GRWq7wA
💞
find photo sources @ 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
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
life: acoustic & amplified 