life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “dark”

10 Feb 2016

what if feeling bad is an ok part of being human?

  
I wish I had a nickel for every stranger who has ever told me, I’ve lost all hope. This happens to me regularly and what surprises me most is my instant reaction which is always something along the lines of “I know that feeling so well” or “Me too.” It seems this is one of the most common, most human feelings we can have and one we aren’t “supposed” to have if we’re evolved, rational creatures. It seems it’s a pitiable feeling to have, requiring an intervention or precipitating an emergency, but what if it just is something we feel sometimes, that’s very painful, made more painful by the feeling we are not supposed to feel it and that we should never ever say it out loud. What if our long days, months, years even with this feeling are hollowing out necessary places in our hearts where we can feel, really feel, what we long for? Like respect? Tenderness? Acceptance? Love?

   – Jen Lemen / facebook

    http://hopefulworld.org

   
  

  

 

Posted in Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Choice, connection, courage, dark, Death, determination, do, Faith, find art at pinterest, Grieving, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, Patience, People, Reality | Leave a comment
09 Feb 2016

doxology and dreams in the dark   

 

 When I looked for good, then evil came unto me: and when I waited for light, there came darkness. 
– Job 30:26 


Smack dab in the middle of the fight 

While I waited for right 

my day turned to night 
I thought I was fine 

the good I would find 

then early one morning I found I was blind
I lay on the ground 

this dark hell I found 

fluttering wings the only sound 
I drank this dark brew 

no way out but through 

this darkness just grew and grew
Overtaking me, Helpless I turned 

My hope was all burned 

I could not choose what I thought I had earned 
I lay in Your hand 

in Your arc I did land 

trusting the truth I had already found 
Watching life pass 

going ever so fast 

oh how long will this dark, dark night last? 
In spite of the fear 

I am still here 

I give thanks even through tears 
I trust in Your plan 

My life is just sand

I am a follower and not a just fan
and if I should die 

The truth does not lie 

The sun will still be here when I say goodbye

I trust in the way

I open and say

Come open the door today
So light come and hold me 

Love come, grow boldly 

Till every bush, and bud, flames holy 

🌙

AL 

    
 

   

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, commitment, confidence, connection, create, dark, Death, find art at pinterest, forgiveness, Glory, Gospel, grace, Grieving, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, Poetry, power, Purpose, Reality | Leave a comment
02 Feb 2016

together in a hopeful world 

  
 Yesterday there was a facebook post from Jen Lemen over at Hopeful World http://hopefulworld.org (she’s one of my most admired people on the planet) telling me that it was a half-way-between-solstice moment and she would be burning a fire in celebration and prayer. If anyone wanted to be part…just say ‘yes’ and she would bring us! I said, ‘Yes, please’ as quickly as I could type it!!! 
And so, last night, while I was sleeping…Jen Lemen was doing something so amazing, I get chill bumps every time I think about it!!! She was holding me, and mine, in that space between. 

Yes, there was INTENTION, there was fire, there was singing, there was celebrating and grieving, there was prayer for the world, for everyone who requested it…and, Holy Batman, Batman, there was prayer for ME and all I hold within and without me. 
What a gift! Beauty and all she is! Powerful and humbling! Encouraging and valuing! I feel it all this morning and I say, Thank you, Jen! Thank you, more than I can say! I am so blessed by you and your work!! 💞 

  
I woke up to these words from Jen this morning: 

Writing blessings. Saying prayers. May you be happy and peaceful. May no harm come to you. May no difficulty come to you. May you be deeply blessed. May you take care of anyone and everything smaller and sweeter than you are. May you surrender your power to make space for a forgotten voice. May you notice the earth and how she moves and breathes. May you say yes when you’re called and stay quietly beside until the time is right. May you become love and be love and find love and hope for more love, when others say it doesn’t matter or all hope is gone. #pathofprayerandpleasure #urbanfamily #bliss #mysticlife #blessings #imbolc #brigid #celticspring

🙏🏻

   – Jen Lemen @ Hopeful World

        http://hopefulworld.org

   
 The poet gives you a little stone to stand on,

a ledge, a moment of the world or your own mind

to notice, to ground yourself in,

and from there to leap
maybe to another stone, a similar noticing,

maybe to another star, the light you are made of,

or a beauty pouring itself into you,

or maybe just leap all the way to God.
When you are praying

the smallest thing

can be what you stand on,

can be your prayer.
Any time, from even a single twig

you can leap

and wherever you land will be God.

The leaping is God. 
__________________ 

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

  
 

Follow and support Jen Lemen @

http://hopefulworld.org

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

Posted in action, Adventure, Alone, attitude, awareness, beauty, beloved, big, Blessing, Choice, connection, dark, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Glory, grace, Gratitude, Grieving, Happiness, Hope, inspiration, Letting Go, Life, light, Love, mystery, Passion, Prayer, receiving, Reflection, Relationships, soul and spirit, strength, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
29 Dec 2015

the beds we make: predicted 

 

how much of our lives do we predict through our words

which come from our thoughts 

our actions following that form 

belief systems so deep seeded are seated 

within us deeper than deep

most times we do things 

from an unconscious place

of familial familiarity 

patterns so old

we can trace them into generations past passing

the torturous torch

ever forward 

how do we stop this bitter flower flowering?

how do we dam the damning history if our history?

remember to remember 

thoughts become things

words are power

actions speak louder than shouting 

we can do hard things

we get to choose

that’s what free will is all about

all we need is love

love wins every time

put that truth in your peace pipe and smoke it!

I’ll take all that into all the upcoming 

brand spanking, 

sparkling 

new years 

year after year –

I choose a life of love

🍾

AL  

 So, you get to choose – are you going to suffer, or be happy for the next seven years? 
I’m going to suffer. 

  

  
HEALING: is moving forward even when nothing is working out, and understanding that one day, it will all work together to create an even better today than yesterday. 

   – Soul Pancake 

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, commitment, connection, courage, dark, Death, determination, do, find art at pinterest, Freedom, Gratitude, Growth, healing, Reality, receiving, Reflection | Leave a comment
22 Dec 2015

gift

 

 Longest night.

Darkness falls like snow,

falls and falls, 

deepening.

Older than the universe,

here before it,

and will be after.

Wraps an arm around us

as if we’re old friends.

We are.

Darkness lives in us,

radiates from us.

We speak it.

Darkness is the velvet cloth

where you cherish the gem

of your presence among us,

darkness the womb,

darkness the manger

that cradles your light,

this holy being

that becomes us,

births us.

In the darkness

you do not come to us,

we come from you.

Because you are with and not apart,

even the darkness

is you.

Because you shine in it

the dark is our dark,

none of it unchanged.

Your being our light,

your hereness our life,

shining in the longest night.

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

 

 To go into the darkness with a light 
is to know the light. 

To know the dark, go dark. 

Go without light and find that the dark too, blooms and sings 

and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings. 

– Wendell Berry 

  
Black. out. black. 

Black. on. black. 

Dark. on dark. on dark. 

I was simply looking for home. 

Not knowing the current alley would lead 

to where the sidewalk ended 

I stepped off the edge 

out of the world of light 

waking into morning night 

a banished sun 

no stars 

or moon 

or streetlights 

or fireflies 

or lighters 

in pitch darkness 

I lay, unable to move, 

senses adjusting 

to what is my new reality 

hearing the life 

that lives here 

wondering if I’ll make friends 

while I’m here 

learning this new space. 

🌌

AL

 

 Gift suggestions: 
To your enemy –  forgiveness. 

 To an opponent – tolerance. 

   To a friend – your heart. 

     To a customer – service. 

       To every child – a good example. 

          To all – love. 

💞

           – Oren Arnold

  

Posted in action, Adventure, Alone, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, connection, courage, dark, Death, determination, Dreams, find art at pinterest, fragile, Glory, Gospel, grace, Gratitude, healing, home, Letting Go, Love, Miracles, mystery, nature, power, Prayer, quiet, Reflection | Leave a comment
16 Dec 2015

simply still

 

   


   

     
 

   

   
   
 In the sixth month already

of the impossible

Gabriel, 

so usually unseeable—

startling, 

though you thought him so foreign,

how nearer than you

to the seed of your life—

fills the room with his wings,

wraps with his words

this world 

beside God’s so small,

sets it in the greater one

among stars 

and you 

lit by the same light,

and calls forth your trust in heaven’s actual, 
—

for with God nothing is impossible—

the divine within, 

inviting your invitation

from even deeper in,

a Word, 

a world entrusted to you,

your being 

that by gift and labor blesses,

brought with singing

through the portal of this blood of birth

and that crucial other,

calling to life

in your drab littleness

the body of your holiness,

the flesh that God without you cannot have.

Even God waits 

to see the miracle,

the birth that only you can birth.

 

There is no test for paradise,

only paradise.

Say yes.

 

😇

_________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

 

  

http://www.designlovefest.com/2012/12/holiday-centerpiece/

 

 

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blessing, Choice, courage, dark, Faith, Glory, Gospel, grace, Gratitude, Happy Holiday!, Joy, light, Love, Miracles, mystery, Patience, Peace, People, power, receiving, Reflection | Leave a comment
30 Nov 2015

decisions determine destiny 

 

Today I want to feel my way 

into a familiar name 

for the One who holds us all:

a name of endearment,

like the names lovers use in the tangled sheets

a name that ripples through sunlight and tears.

I will listen for that name today, 

Knowing it is the name the Beloved uses to call me.

😍

~Oriah House (c) 2015   My child, don’t be afraid. I am here. I know how hard it is to feel, sometimes. This moment, I know, is difficult to let yourself feel. Don’t hold back. Don’t protect yourself from feeling, your emotions this way and that. This is a gift from Me, the way your heart swings from high to low. I am the constant one. I keep you still. 

 

There are things you will have to face now. I know you want to bury your head, and I let you do that, your head buried on my chest. But know when you lift your head, I will be there to help you to rise. And you will rise, and your feet will find firm footing, and you will square your shoulders and take one step forward, and then another, and you will find you know your way.

 

There is much ahead, and the path does not always seem clear. But I help you to rise. I go ahead, and I help you to rise. And when you stumble, I will help you to stand again. And when you are scared, I will firm your trembling lip and I will navigate you through the storm of emotions and I will quiet your quivering heart.

 

You are fierce and gentle. You are beautiful and strong. You are chosen and delighted in. You are all I’ve made you to be. I took everything from you that has kept you from rising. I have taken everything that makes you feel small and unsure and hesitant. 

 

You can go forward, to the places I lead you. And you will know who you are. My child, the one who knows your Father, the one who knows your own name.

😍

loop

http://www.gatherministries.com/loop/?utm_source=Loop+Devotional&utm_campaign=8f1130a969-Loop_69_Time_For_You_To_Rise10_5_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a7b9cec9e0-8f1130a969-100590649

  
    
    
   
You are loved. Always and forever. 

Posted in attitude, awareness, be, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, connection, courage, dark, determination, find art at pinterest, forgiveness, Gospel, grace, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, Passion, Prayer, Relationships | Leave a comment
20 Nov 2015

largely speaking 

  
Sweet Darkness
When your eyes are tired

the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone

no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark

where the night has eyes

to recognize its own.
There you can be sure

you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb 

tonight.
The night will give you a horizon

further than you can see.
You must learn one thing.

The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds

except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness

to learn
anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.

🔥

 – David Whyte

  

  
I sense infinity 

I open myself to the unlimited 

and with that opening 

I glimpse unending love 

I breathe the cold morning air

Absorb the sunlight dancing on the water 

take in the sight of millions of diamonds 

on blue velvet 

and I struggle, 

reaching, to open fully 

to take in this message 

to understand this beauty 

I sit in silence 

I listen in wonder 

I stay in that moment 

for eternity 

it is for eternity 

as I walk home 

I ask my soul’s questions: 

How will I allow God to love me?

How will I allow love to touch me?

☀️

AL     

 

photo by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT 

Posted in action, Adventure, Alone, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Choice, color, dark, determination, find art at pinterest, Gratitude, healing, home, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, Relationships | Leave a comment
30 Oct 2015

let the light  

  
You work with what you are given, 

the red clay of grief, 

the black clay of stubbornness going on after. 

Clay that tastes of care or carelessness, 

clay that smells of the bottoms of rivers or dust.
Each thought is a life you have lived or failed to live, 

each word is a dish you have eaten or left on the table. 

There are honeys so bitter 

no one would willingly choose to take them. 

The clay takes them: honey of weariness, honey of vanity, 

honey of cruelty, fear. 
This rebus —slip and stubbornness, 

bottom of river, my own consumed life— 

when will I learn to read it 

plainly, slowly, uncolored by hope or desire? 

Not to understand it, only to see. 
As water given sugar sweetens, given salt grows salty, 

we become our choices. 

Each yes, each no continues, 

this one a ladder, that one an anvil or cup. 
The ladder leans into its darkness. 

The anvil leans into its silence. 

The cup sits empty. 
How can I enter this question the clay has asked? 

🔹

Rebus by Jane Hirshfield

 

 The lion still roars 
I walk in grief 

On the purple beach 

the grey-green water 

meeting the sky 

Into infinity 

the world unending 

I sit on driftwood 

Fascinatingly carved by water 

Into pieces of art 

and shapes that look like 

cattle skulls in the desert 

I cry as I pick up rocks 

Why do i grieve such simple things?

Those precious shells 

I spent hours snorkeling for 

In 1985 

You polished them 

til they were smooth as silk 

So beautiful 

I loved everything about them 

and that memory they held 

Back When the world was still 

A mystery 

And I knew nothing about hardship 

Loss or pain 

I thought love and life were simple 

That you wanted me to be happy

That you loved me 

That we would build a family together 

I kept those shells in a special jar 

Would let the kids play with them

For a special treat 

I loved their delight in them 

As they played for hours 

sorting the colors and shapes 

Loving the story of us at the start

I Kept them close to me 

Through all the losses 

Then they were gone 

lost to me forever 

way after my innocence 

but somehow they took 

some shred I was holding on to 

Some secret part of me and you 

that was still beautiful 
As I picked up small beautiful rocks 

today at the beach 

They reminded me 

and it all returned 

all the losses 

all the pain 

What you chose 

The choices I was forced to make 

The price of gaining my soul 

The cost of winning my freedom 

I cry so deeply 

Right to the core 

such intense love 

for the wounded heart 

carried in small pieces 

of the world 

connecting all the pain 

and love together 

Bittersweet grief 

Bittersweet love 

Exquisite pain 

Exquisite joy 

Will I ever find love that understands this? 

Will I ever share this same heart as one? 

Will I ever make it home? 

Will I ever make it? 

Will I ever? 

Will I? 

Will? 

💙

AL

 

    

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

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, connection, courage, dark, Death, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, giving, grace, Grieving, Growth, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, Reflection, soul and spirit, Trust, truth, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
03 Oct 2015

what if?

 

 Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
– Leo F. Buscaglia

   
 Job’s wife said to him, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die.” 
         

But he said to her, “You speak as any fool would speak. 
         

Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?”
                  —Job 2.9-10

   

      By the grace of God 
         

Christ tastes death for everyone’s sake.
                  —Hebrews 2.9

The question is not why there is suffering:
why shouldn’t there be?
Should there be no germs or earthquakes?

Should life be free of risk, or pain, or tears,
free of choices or freedom, but only directed by God?

Is pleasure always good, pain always bad?

Isn’t suffering necessary for love?

What would “deserving” be?

Would we want a God continually judging us,
the Dispenser Of Suffering And Reward?

Can God actually control suffering or pleasure?

Why is speaking in public, or being alone,
 heaven for one and hell for another?

A blind person I know rebuffs our sympathy:
what we call suffering she does not.

What if one experienced sickness not as suffering 
but a time to accept mortality, to draw near to God, 
a Sabbath?

Who “allows” evil or injustice, war or poverty? 
Who “allows” suffering when we eat meat? 

If a person suffered for their evil,
 could God not comfort them, relieve their sorrow or pain?

Or isn’t that the one thing God promises:
 not to make our lives exactly as pleasurable as we deserve
but to be with us in it all?

There is evil because we are imperfectly loved;
 sometimes we can’t bear our hurt, 
but project it onto others.

How does God deal with evil? 

By being with us in our pain, to heal it
 so we may stop spreading it.
 God suffers with us, “tastes death for everyone’s sake.”

There is no “reason,” nor need there be. 
There is no need for labels of “good” and “bad.”  
There is only gracious presence for all,
and the love that is willing to suffer for others,
 the saving grace of the cross.

Rather than question suffering,
 receive it as part of life, 
enter into people’s pain and the suffering of the world,
 and absorb it, so it may stop spreading —

and you will find God there.

 

__________________

 
Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

 

True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.

—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

🔹

I want you to remember

I will always love you

Love does not forget

The sun will shine tomorrow

Don’t look back and regret 
Please won’t you remember 

rainy skies and grey days

Some times you will get

there’s always sun to follow

Then rainbows I predict 
I hope that you’ll remember

Love is really true

Sing and please don’t fret

The sun it shines, although 

you may not see it yet

🔹

AL

 

Listen to Little Anthony sing Tears on my Pillow  http://youtu.be/uxjQ3M_v7xc

🔹

photos found at www.pinterest.com

Posted in attitude, awareness, Beliefs, beloved, Change, Choice, compassion, courage, dark, Death, find art at pinterest, Gospel, grace, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, Reflection | Leave a comment

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