life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “determination”

02 Jun 2015

focus 

 

listen to Eva Cassidy sing my favorite song…http://youtu.be/X6Oq-WQ-Sy4     

         No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property 

         without first tying up the strong man; 

         then indeed the house can be plundered. 

                  —Mark 3.27
Jesus is able to cast out demons because he has already overpowered the “strong man.” He has robbed the demonic of its power. 
What am I most afraid of? Is it being wrong, or being alone, or being powerless? Pain, failure, insecurity, being unloved, the shattering of my self-image? What is it? What is the deepest fear that will derail me today from loving perfectly? Take a moment to reflect. 
When I feel this fear how might I react? What behaviors are red flags to me that I am afraid of the strong man? 
Stay still for a moment. Breathe deeply. Be mindful of this: God has already overpowered that which I fear. Love has already disarmed it. Once, perhaps as a child, it made sense to fear it, but no longer. What I fear is now powerless to harm me. 
I am free to walk into that fearful house and plunder it, to take life and beauty and grace. I am free to live deeply, to love perfectly, to know joy. 
With trust, courage and gratitude I take this strength, this grace with me into the day.

__________________ 

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

Photo source found at www.pinterest.com

Posted in attitude, awareness, Blessing, Career, Choice, courage, create, determination, Dreams, Faith, find art at pinterest, Gratitude | Leave a comment
27 May 2015

on growing strong bones 

  

backbones get built

vertebrae by vertebrae

with every victory

with every heartache

with every triumph

with every shattering

with each awakening
they become sturdy

bearing the weight of new consciousness

embodying self-love

strengthened, emboldened
yet still flexible, yet still able

to make flowing and fluid movement

undulating with pulsing life

able to stand firm in the face of a challenge or adversity
backbones don’t magically appear because we wish them into being
backbones need nurturing and kindness and discipline and conviction and intention

and desire

to form and develop
they help us be stalwart and valiant

protecting the soft, vulnerable, tender inner parts of our being
robust, hearty boundaries that

don’t cut us off from nourishment — they make sure we’re getting the right kind
the fortitude to love, not blindly, but with courage. 

💪🏻💪🏾💪🏽💪🏼💪🏿💪🏼💪

    How Backbones Get Built by Eloiza Jorge

   https://deepeningwisdom.wordpress.com/2015/05/25/how-backbones-get-built-a-poem/
   
   

  
Never quit. Never. Rest when you need to, then get back up. Strength comes as you walk. Backbones come one good choice at a time. 

 Listen to Katy Perry sing Roar http://youtu.be/CevxZvSJLk8

photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513

 

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, Change, Choice, commitment, courage, create, determination, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Gratitude, Growth, inspiration, Patience, power, Reflection, Relationships, soul and spirit, strength, Trust, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
25 May 2015

give us peace 🇺🇸

 I, may I rest in peace—I, who am still living, say,

May I have peace in the rest of my life.

I want peace right now while I’m still alive.

I don’t want to wait like that pious man who wished for one leg

of the golden chair of Paradise, I want a four-legged chair

right here, a plain wooden chair. I want the rest of my peace now.

I have lived out my life in wars of every kind: battles without 

and within, close combat, face-to-face, the faces always

my own, my lover-face, my enemy-face.

Wars with the old weapons—sticks and stones, blunt axe, words,

dull ripping knife, love and hate,

and wars with newfangled weapons—machine gun, missile, 

words, land mines exploding, love and hate,

I don’t want to fulfill my parents’ prophecy that life is war.

I want peace with all my body and all my soul.

Rest me in peace.

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

I, May I Rest in Peace by Yehuda Amichai

   For all whose lives have been taken by war,

grant your mercy O God.

For soldiers, civilians, those wounded and neglected,

grant your mercy, O God.

For earth despoiled and living beings sacrificed,

grant your mercy, O God.

For our glorification of war and violence

and our willingness to hurt others

to defend ourselves,

grant your mercy, O God.

We give thanks for your beloved 

whom we have sacrificed;

we ask blessing for their loved ones,

confess our need for your grace,

and pray for the redemption of society.

Spirit of compassion and gentleness,

in the name of the One who was sacrificed,

save us by your grace,

and grant us your mercy.

Amen

__________________  

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

🇺🇸 happy Memorial Day

Listen to Garth sing We Shall Be Free http://youtu.be/13s9eciFDzA

Quote photo sources found at www.pinterest.com

Posted in America, awareness, Blessing, compassion, courage, determination, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, giving, Gratitude, Happy Holiday!, inspiration, Peace, politics, power, Prayer, Uncategorized, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
23 May 2015

what are you looking for? 

When our eyes are graced with wonder, the world reveals its wonders to us. There are people who see only dullness in the world and that is because their eyes have already been dulled. So much depends on how we look at things. The quality of our looking determines what we come to see.     – John O’Donohue

 
  

  

   

  

  

 

  

Listen to Jason Mraz sing I’m Yours http://youtu.be/wIFh9hYongk

quote photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513 

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, determination, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, Love, Miracles, mystery, perceptions, soul and spirit, touch, Trust, truth, words, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
22 May 2015

just this…

  

Photo by Charlie Doane @ Branford, CT 

 Only a beige slat of sun 
above the horizon, like a shade pulled 

not quite down. Otherwise, 

clouds. Sea rippled here and 

there. Birds reluctant to fly. 

The mind wants a shaft of sun to 

stir the grey porridge of clouds, 

an osprey to stitch sea to sky 

with its barred wings, some dramatic 

music: a symphony, perhaps 

a Chinese gong. 
But the mind always 

wants more than it has— 

one more bright day of sun, 

one more clear night in bed 

with the moon; one more hour 

to get the words right; one 

more chance for the heart in hiding 

to emerge from its thicket 

in dried grasses—as if this quiet day 

with its tentative light weren’t enough, 

as if joy weren’t strewn all around. 

🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

Mind Wanting More by Holly Hughes

   
 

 Listen to my favorite song ❤️http://youtu.be/A3yCcXgbKrE

🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

other photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513

 

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Change, Choice, connection, courage, determination, Faith, find art at pinterest, strength, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
12 May 2015

promise keeper

 to make a promise…

Make a place of prayer, no fuss,
just lean into the white brilliance 
and say what you needed to say
all along, nothing too much, words
as simple and as yours and as heard
as the bird song above your head
or the river running gently beside you,
let your words join to the world 
the way stone nestles on stone
the way the water simply leaves 
and goes to the sea,
the way your promise 
breathes and belongs 
with every other promise 
the world has ever made. 

Now, leave them to go on, 
let your words alone 
to carry their own life,
without you, let the promise 
go with the river. 
Have faith. Walk away.

…

TO MAKE A PROMISE by David Whyte

 

So easy to miss the moment.
Just this.
This inhale. . . . this exhale. . . .
This dawn of dark clouds streaked with light.
This smile, this ache, this laughter, these tears. . . 
As we slip into the water of this week unfolding before us.
             ~ Oriah

  

Listen to Gavin McGraw sing Follow Through http://youtu.be/dr2o8Ir30Zc

🚣🏿🚣🏿🚣🏿🚣🏿🚣🏿🚣🏿🚣🏿🚣🏿

photo sources found at http://www.pinterest.com/al513

Posted in attitude, awareness, Choice, commitment, connection, courage, determination, find art at pinterest, Letting Go, Life, Love, Relationships, soul and spirit, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, words, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
17 Apr 2015

love heals the wound it makes….

 

Turning

Love is a mystery…

Wait! You already have it wrong

So do I!

And that’s the meaning of the song!

 

I gave it away for once,

The meaning;

What I’m saying…

Is the question still gone?

 

I’m going to twist these rhymes

And hold them till the end,

For I am the waiting comma;

And the semicolon you won’t send…

 

The ellipsis at the turn…

And the truth around the bend

The silent, waiting answer,

The wound that will not mend?

💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞

by Matthew Mele
  
Listen to Eva Cassidy Time is a Healer http://youtu.be/ttl-W-hVDpQ 
 
photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513 

 

Posted in awareness, beauty, beloved, Choice, connection, courage, determination, find art at pinterest, healing, Letting Go, Losing, Love, Miracles, mystery, Passion, Poetry, Relationships, soul and spirit, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
11 Apr 2015

what’s meant to be will be

 

 Longing for what I don’t have,

aware of the great space between us,

not driven to fill it,
yet there is a loneliness, a waiting,
not sadness, not pathetic at all,
but a homesickness,
remembering what I long for,
what I long to know,
patient with my unknowing, 
and the dull, burning ache of my knowing,
trusting there is always more of love
than I can sense,
a great, wide solitude
I won’t clutter with less or other.

Such spaciousness leaves room
for these deep sighs
and profound joys
and mostly these calm, roomy smiles 

I find sprinkled generously 
throughout any given day. 

ACL 4/11/15

(edited from Unfolding Light Waiting Thomas by Steve Garnaas-Holmes)

 

  

  

 

  

Listen to Desperado Linda Ronstadt http://youtu.be/uVhRqH7euHI

Photo sources at www.pinterest.com/al513

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Choice, confidence, connection, courage, determination, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Lonely, Love, mystery, People, Relationships, soul and spirit, touch, Trust, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
15 Mar 2015

passion

Go out on a limb when you pray for others. Take a risk. Be outrageous. Be passionate. Take a leap. Love a lot, not just a little.   –Rick Hamlin



I’m not making this up. In Cafe Latte’s wine bar

one of the lovely coeds at the next table
touched John on the arm as if I wasn’t there
and said, Excuse me, sir, but what
is that naughty little dessert?
And I knew from the way he glanced
at the frothy neckline of her blouse,
then immediately cast his eyes on his plate
before giving a fatherly answer,
he would have given up dessert three months
for the chance to feed this one to her.
I was stunned; John was hopeful;
but the girl was hitting on his cake.
Though she told her friend until they left
she did not want any. I wish she wanted
something-my husband, his cake, both at once.
I wish she left insisting
upon the beauty of his hands, his curls,
the sublimeness of strawberries
and angel food. But she was precocious,
and I fear adulthood is the discipline
of being above desire, cultivated
after years of learning what you want
and where and how, after insisting
that you will one day have it. I don’t
ever want to stop noticing a man like the one
at the bar in his loosened tie, reading
the Star Tribune. I don’t want to eat my cake
with a baby spoon to force small bites,
as women’s magazines suggest. And you
don’t want to either, do you? You want a big piece
of this world. You would love to have the whole thing.

Consuming Desire by Katrina Vandenberg






Live authentically. Why would you continue to compromise something that’s beautiful to create something that is fake?       – Steve Maraboli



Photo sources found at

www.pinterest.com/al513

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, courage, determination, find art at pinterest, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, Passion, People, Relationships, soul and spirit, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
28 Feb 2015

in the coldest times

Sometimes you have to take your own hand

as though you were a lost child
and bring yourself stumbling
home over twisted ice.

Whiteness drifts over your house.
A page of warm light
falls steady from the open door.

Here is your bed, folded open.
Lie down, lie down, let the blue snow cover you.

Grief by Louise Erdrich














photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT

http://youtu.be/o6rwMRE3NKg





Sōetsu Yanagi, founder of Japan’s modern craft movement, defines beauty as that which gives unlimited scope to the imagination; beauty is a source of imagination, he says, that never dries up. A thing so attractive and absorbing may not be pretty or pleasant. It could be ugly, in fact, and yet seize the soul as beautiful in a special sense…luring the heart into profound and endless imagination. 

     – Thomas Moore (edited)




Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Choice, courage, dark, Death, determination, Faith, find art at pinterest, Grieving, Letting Go, Seasons, soul and spirit, Trust, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

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