life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “determination”

18 Sep 2016

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!  

Posted in Adventure, attitude, awareness, Beginning, connection, courage, create, Death, determination, Dreams, find art at pinterest | Leave a comment
18 Sep 2016

just this…

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, connection, determination, Faith, find art at pinterest, fun, Happiness, healing | Leave a comment
06 Sep 2016

your prison is walking through this world all alone  – Deperado (lyric).  

You must leave a lot behind

for your life to become whole.
What the Beloved lets go of

to have you!
If there were a hell 

God would always be there 

carrying people out. 
There is a flock that is not well

without you.
When you think you’ve run away,

proud of your independence,

you’re really just lost.

You need each other. 
All of life is God’s party

at having found you.

Or maybe, today, another.
Don’t be ashamed to be brought in

on the shepherd’s shoulders:

you got lost in the best possible way,

looking for God. 

         

Remember each of the other ninety-nine

came the same way. 

         

         

__________________  

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

listen to Love is My Religion



and before it can be begun

the wind whips the wisps of promise

out of our reaching hands

the hard ground dries the wettest seeds

the thorny earth strangles

the fragile thin ice easily breaking

plunges us under the dark icy water of yesterday’s pain

the sensitive places choke us

we allow old wounds to be reopened 

by new innocents

replay 

rewind

again and again

life is not always kind

love is not always given a chance to bloom

buds crushed early

unicorns are tricky

yeti never let themselves be fully seen

or photographed

quickly disappearing into the foggy forest 

yes, truth is written by those in the know:

“it is ours to win or lose”

so, what will we choose?

to step in or duck out?

some people love to talk loud about the desire to win

then secretly, swiftly throw the game

and silently walk away

thinking they are playing life safe

fear is a brutal master

comfort-zones will kill us all

though we’ll keep 

breathing for many years

trust is a deep quarry hidden within

the high walls of the castle

each kingdom must be won 

the beast slain by our courageous spirit

removing the massive heads of the monsters

with the found sword of our personal truths

Envision holding those fearful grotesque trophies aloft!

Stepping into your full name! 

Champion

Conquerer

Love always wins! 

You must choose it! 

You can do it,

were born that way! 

Amy Lloyd (AL)


All my life, I thought of love as some kind of voluntary enslavement. Well, that’s a lie: freedom only exists when love is present. The person who gives him or herself wholly, the person who feels freest, is the person who loves most wholeheartedly.
― Paulo Coelho 


Read that again:

All my life, I thought of love as some kind of voluntary enslavement. Well, that’s a lie: freedom only exists when love is present. The person who gives him or herself wholly, the person who feels freest, is the person who loves most wholeheartedly.
― Paulo Coelho 

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01 Sep 2016

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”


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30 Aug 2016

preserving by excusing  

The true inner self

must be drawn up

like a jewel from

the bottom of the sea,

rescued from confusion,

from indistinction,

from immersion

in the common,

the nondescript,

the trivial,

the sordid,

the evanescent.

-Thomas Merton

  Seed of Contemplation


words silently spoken

from the other room

words fitly 

uttered aloud

in due time

silent revelry 

of the heart

surrendered

to defeat

successful in distraction 

sidetracked by our addictions of choice

too brilliant to be truly seen

waiting to die

too damaged to brave transparency 

too convinced that ‘nothing can be done’ to brave self responsibility 

too comfortable to say no to that monster keeping us chained to the weakest parts of ourselves

the bullsh** of wasted lives

the emptiness of wasting time

the cruel decisions of men drowning 

the hopes of the weak trampled

the tragedy of the parental misguidance 

ingrained foundations 

the travesty of religion 

gone wrong

it happens so often

doctrine and old false belief systems

 becoming the 

masters of deceit filled lives

rather than the servant

of love

oh soul arise and fight 

break up the hallowed ground of the falsified truth

oh, my friend, take back your life

open the beautiful box 

of your most vulnerable, passionate essence

the pope will never take your case

your parents will never grant permission

but then again,

why would you want them too?

This is your life! 

Only you can stand for what is given you

take that buried coffin

out of the ground

plant a seed or two inside

No one else can do it for you

or take it away from you

just you

 you can never be too sensitive 

you already know the real truth

celebrate yourself

flaunt your true colors

they’re so very beautiful 

remember to remember

only love is real

💞

Amy Lloyd (AL)


Help Me
As they’re used psychologically, words like repression, denial, sublimation, and defense all refer to one form or another of the way human beings erect walls to hide behind, both from each other and from themselves. You repress the memory that is too painful to deal with, say. You deny your weight problem. You sublimate some of your sexual energy by channeling it into other forms of activity more socially acceptable. You conceal your sense of inadequacy behind a defensive bravado. And so on and so forth. The inner state you end up with is a castle-like affair of keep, inner wall, outer wall, and moat, which you erect originally to be a fortress to keep the enemy out, but which turns into a prison where you become the jailer and thus your own enemy. It is a wretched and lonely place. You can’t be what you want to be there or do what you want to do. People can’t see through all that masonry to who you truly are, and half the time you’re not sure you can see who you truly are yourself, you’ve been walled up so long.
Fortunately there are two words that offer a way out, and they’re simply these: “Help me.” It’s not always easy to say them-you have your pride after all, and you’re not sure there’s anybody you trust enough to say them to-but they’re always worth saying. To another human being-a friend, a stranger? To God? Maybe it comes to the same thing.
Help me. They open a door through the walls, that’s all. At least hope is possible again. At least you’re no longer alone.
~ Frederick Buechner 

originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words





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24 Aug 2016

the wild & salty now 


Welcome and entertain them all

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

🏡

Parker J. Palmer with a light-hearted metaphor from Rumi — on the unexpected visitor and welcoming her in, serendipitous chaos and all.


I paddled a small boat

through wind and waves in the open sea,

the wind wanting to wipe me sideways,

waves lurching me about,

the constant pressing, the effort, 

the all aloneness of it,

a little dot in an ocean wide of green,

the struggle so welcome, so satisfying,
because I was there. 
I have climbed mountains and hiked deserts,

raised children and journeyed through a marriage

simply to be there.
You have swung the hammer, sewed the seams, 

taken the bus, changed the diapers,

recovered from the illness, done the time.

You run races, you wash dishes,

you row your body through its failings,

you work the work of youth or of aging,

you put your shoulder to it.

Even in prayer’s stillness

you go the distance.
This is the holy pilgrimage:

to meet the given day.

You give yourself to this moment as it is,

hand to hand, all in,

and beyond all accomplishment

you are given the gift 

of this life.

You come home with salt in your hair

and a whole wide sea in your heart. 

      
__________________  

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net


Yesterday afternoon I watched Kate Hudson die in her movie,

A Bit of Heaven,

and I thought about how important our little bit of time is here on this earth. 

The vast importance of now! 

To never hold back sharing our love,

our bit of time here with the ones we love. 

This morning, as I scrolled through my Facebook feed,

I read posts from various friends,

anniversaries of loss. 

The shock of too young loss. 

The bewilderment of unexpected loss. 

The anger of longing for the love loss. 

Missing persons. 

Persons missing persons. 

I listened to the music these friends shared. 

Music chosen in a very personal, intimate way,

helping them deal, 

bringing them comfort,

tapping into their passion, 

their anger,

their extreme feelings,

their great oceans of emotion. 

Music helping them allow,

helping them to move,

helping them release,

as they remain here, feeling left and bereft. 

Music. Always music. 

I cried with them, 

for them,

for my own tsunami of losses. 

As their music poured into me,

I felt their particular loss, 

and I stood along side them and held them in love. 

I honor the grieving hearts of the world. 

I honor the gift, and power, of music. 

🎼

Amy Lloyd (AL)


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22 Aug 2016

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!




Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, be, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, Beliefs, Change, Choice, courage, create, determination, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, Freedom, Gratitude, Grieving, Growth, healing, inspiration, intimacy, Leadership, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, nature, Passion, perceptions, Relationships, soul and spirit, strength, transformation, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
20 Aug 2016

check in



“This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs: to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, argue, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek.”

— from LEAP by Terry Tempest Williams
With Leap, Terry Tempest Williams, award-winning author of Refuge, offers a sustained meditation on passion, faith, and creativity-based upon her transcendental encounter with Hieronymus Bosch’s medieval masterpiece The Garden of Delights. Williams examines this vibrant landscape with unprecedented acuity, recognizing parallels between the artist’s prophetic vision and her own personal experiences as a Mormon and a naturalist. Searing in its spiritual, intellectual, and emotional courage, Williams’s divine journey enables her to realize the full extent of her faith and through her exquisite imagination opens our eyes to the splendor of the world. READ an excerpt: http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/191447/leap/


Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, balance, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Choice, connection, courage, determination, emotions, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, Happiness, healing, Imagine, inspiration, Letting Go, Life, Love, Passion, perceptions | Leave a comment
17 Aug 2016

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)


Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, beloved, commitment, connection, courage, determination, Faith, find art at pinterest, friendship, healing, inspiration, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, moment, Reflection, Relationships, soul and spirit, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
11 Aug 2016

the space between breaths


All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you.

    – Octavia E. Butler


fierce surrender
relentlessly engaged
In a loud and howling world, it’s in the silence of a broken heart that the chambers of you can hear the sound of God speaking. It’s in the emptiness that happens in the wake of a broken heart, that God fills you with Himself.
Soundlessly, relentlessly praying through your spaces of brokenness makes the heart bigger, until you hold the gift of God alone.
I memorize the white of the moon. Freeze frame the Farmer grinning in the white light of it there on the tractor seat, the peak of his feed cap pulled low over his face. We get to inhale. We get to live every day like it might be our last —- because one of these days, we’re guaranteed to be right.
We get to surrender to the glory, to the weight of it coming through the thinning sky, and there’s nothing in this world that’s normal — there’s only growing blind to the glory. There’s only growing blind to the injustice, to the blood on our own hands, to the love we could make, to the One who says, “Holy Father, keep them in Your name…. —- that they may be one, even as we are one” (John ‪17:11‬) to the truth that we all belong to one another. It’s the cynics who wear armour to shield the heart from all this beauty that wounds.
You are perishable here.

Taste the moments accordingly.
Taste the space between every breath like it is bread, the space between the stars where you and he are just for now, the space between you and faces you love and being here no more, the spaces between the pain, between you and streets of grief, between you and injustice and war and mothers cradling their babies in fear, and learn to love before it’s too late. I need to etch that into me.
You are perishable here, Taste the moments accordingly —

You get to decide whether you are going to taste it, all of it and know that God is good and enjoy Him and make your life about others tasting His goodness too.
You get to decide whether you’re going to spend your one life trying to make an impression and look good —  or make a difference and do good.
You don’t get long here before you get to be a memory — so make your life about getting thirsty people glasses of water.

💧

    – Ann Voskamp

blog: aholyexperience.com


Isaiah 6
There were banks of candles flickering in the distance and clouds of incense thickening the air with holiness and stinging his eyes, and high above him, as if it had always been there but was only now seen for what it was (like a face in the leaves of a tree or a bear among the stars), there was the Mystery Itself, whose gown was the incense and the candles a dusting of gold at the hem. There were winged creatures shouting back and forth the way excited children shout to each other when dusk calls them home, and the whole vast, reeking place started to shake beneath his feet like a wagon going over cobbles, and he cried out, “O God, I am done for! I am foul of mouth and the member of a foul-mouthed race. With my own two eyes I have seen him. I’m a goner and sunk.” Then one of the winged things touched his mouth with fire and said, “There, it will be all right now,” and the Mystery Itself said, “Who will it be?” and with charred lips he said, “Me,” and Mystery said “Go.”
Mystery said, “Go give the deaf hell till you’re blue in the face and go show the blind heaven till you drop in your tracks, because they’d sooner eat ground glass than swallow the bitter pill that puts roses in the cheeks and a gleam in the eye. Go do it.”

Isaiah said, “Do it till when?”

Mystery said, “Till hell freezes over.”

Mystery said, “Do it till the cows come home.”

And that is what a prophet does for a living and, starting from the year that King Uzziah died, when he saw and heard all these things, Isaiah went and did it.

🔥

~ Frederick Buechner originally published in Peculiar Treasures and later in Beyond Words


What is your unrelenting passion?

My Beloved said, “My name is not complete without yours.”

And I thought, How could a human’s worth ever be such?

And God knowing all of our thoughts, and all our thoughts are just innocent steps on the path, then addressed my heart.

God revealed a sublime truth to the world when He sang

“I am made whole by your life. Each soul, each soul completes Me.”
– Hafiz


Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, commitment, compassion, connection, courage, determination, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Glory, Gospel, grace, Gratitude, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, Passion, Purpose | Leave a comment

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