“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/
Most of life begins with a whisper ..a sigh that slips through the unconscious mind, the bridge between human and divine… raising the bar… giving us jiggle room to live a different kind of life…..there are no notes any more. Wisdom on paper, wisdom in blood.
Nothing more than thin layers dividing land from the sea, a clear lane that resides between ethereal sound and make believe. Peter Pan, a ship in the sky, a way to live enchanted, before the mystery flies over…beyond the eye…and heaven looks like…feels like…sounds like…smells like…a way through where nothing is divided.
Breathing God takes concentration, purity runs like…peach juice down the chin; laughter from a child; finding honey on the tongue as ordinary …dressing in robes no one can see, and purple, drapes nicely in the heat of the day…some will say it is only play, and a new day begins with thin sheets of invisible…wide roads of possible, milky white and radiant.
Stepping into, standing beside, claiming victory, ignoring nothing other than the speed in which you die. Born for this…
to be alchemy and dreamer all at the same time… tantalized by burning through layers while walking the streets catching whiffs of perfume…Julian of Norwich no further down the road than a few hundred years and I can still hear her saying…”this God of yours walks in mysterious ways, I’ve heard it too….” and the sunrise begins to taint the Nebraska sky…a slight puff of cloud coverage begins on the edge, a yellow hue…prayers slip through the heart space, between kingdoms of glory and powers of might…I call on all the guidance that waits nearby…and another holy day begins. The world within the world.
Beauty,
Donna Knutson
I step softly into this day
a bit raw
a bit salty
I sit with my understanding
I stare into the abyss between
I uncover the wound to feel the morning air
I gently touch what is exposed
I sing over it
I let it go
I allow this hard thing to be the right
I do not see it all
I see enough
I walk forward with my longtime companion,
Beauty, in all she is,
attends my walking,
never disappoints,
she keeps my heart soft,
gives me hope in the smug places.
I am ever aware and grateful
🌸
Amy Lloyd (AL)
…and in the time remaining…all I wish you is love…
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
The best advice ever, beautifully written, by Fred LaMotte:
‘Smart’ people believe in their thoughts, especially the thought of ‘me.’ How can a thought discriminate between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ideas? Only the silence beyond ideas, who watches without thought, can discriminate.
Don’t be so smart. Be a little stupid. Watch thoughts come and go without grasping them. Even the thought of ‘me.’ Rest beyond mind as self-radiant emptiness.
You are not an idea, ceaselessly arguing with other ideas. You are sparkling omnipresent free space, where all ideas arise and dissolve without conflict.
The way to peace is awakening the Witness.
Oh Infinite Intelligence, I ask not for more blessings,
but more wisdom with which to make better use of
the greatest of all blessings with which I was endowed
at birth – the right to embrace and direct to ends of my
own choice the powers of my mind.
———-
Napoleon Hill’s Greatest Speeches. Sound Wisdom. Pennsylvania. 2016. Pgs. 161-162
I always say we learn virtue by practicing not by thinking about it. I have been silently but actively observing the world around me paying attention to the subtle details and nuances of spoken and written words and the behavior and actions or inaction that trail them. Words are as much of a communicator of truths as they are of falsehoods. Time and time again human history has taught us that actions will reveal the essence of our intention. The honest but hard work of virtue lies in action. It acts upon the merits of thoughtfulness, sound judgement based on receptivity, cooperation, observation, broad mindedness and wisdom. It transforms, expands and evolves. Truth does not crown itself king amidst the utterance of words that are used to describe it. It only upholds to its reverence when it is purposefully active as it is so in nature. It differs greatly from the action of falsehood which only acts to benefit itself in a superficial accordance to judgements that are based upon reactionary egotistical self proclaimed righteousness, which is a bizarre tendency of human behavior. It loves to boast its declarations with repetitive renditions of words from a conglomerate array of them barely even scratching the surface of thier true meaning. The depths of truth is far beyond reach for those who proclaim falsehood as Truth. It’s a masquerading of words that don’t align with its corresponding action.
Truth is multilayered, multifaceted and complexed, a sort of breeding ground for simple truths that are free flowing through life right beneath the surface of reality. It is ubiquitous as space. Yet mainstream treads through a dense cloud of a fictional existence constantly trying to figure out the meaning of life and its purpose amid illusions in a perpetual loop.
🔁
– Lisette Hesmadt
Preach it, teach it…wear it like a robe…
Breathe it, sniff it…take it to the road…
Hold it, form it…release, than sigh…
Belt it out…whisper it ….murmur the sound…
No silence, but stillness…
Find the paradoxes, hold the tension…
Walk the corridors until you miss it…and walk it again…
You are not mystic, nor healer…until your fear is all gone…
Baptize it, drown it…rise from the dead…
Then burn and burn…
Beauty,
Donna Knutson
TO BE READ IN THE INTERROGATIVE
Have you seen
Have you truly seen
the snow
the stars
the felt steps of the breeze
Have you touched
really have you touched
the plate
the bread
the face of that woman you love
so much
Have you lived
like a blow to the head
the flash
the gasp
the fall
the flight
Have you known
known in every pore of your skin
how your eyes
your hands
your sex
your soft heart
must be thrown away
must be wept away
must be invented all over again
💞
~Julio Cortazar
There is grace on ground like this
(we can say that every step we take
every day we live)
wherever we are is sacred ground
every bush we see burning holy
every rock singing glory
every bird testament of trust
every tree drips abundance
every flower secure in extravagant love
every waterfall
every rainbow
and moonbow
and drop of the summer rain
shimmers with promise
rocks standing firm in the faith
glittering in sunshine
we are made of stars
held together with a bit of mud
breathing the breath of the creator
made up of the very same matter as the universe
life / death our greatest gifts
the space between
will be shades of heaven
or the darkest shades of hell
we choose our path with every decision
free will is our constant companion
choices…always choices
our most important recognized awareness
wake up
guard them well
pay attention
dance a lot
share the miracles
strewn all along our way
💞
AL
Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more.
playing sweet percussion through the tall, lush marsh grass
gentle water
invisible birds singing in surround sound
my heart resonates with the language we have spoken
the songs we have sung
the rich vibrations of our connection
over the past few days
the new sun warms my back
my shadow sits large
writing poems
this silence my gratitude
this morning my pleasure
this day my gift
this moment my life
thank you for reaching out
for breaking through the darkness
for holding my hand
💞
AL
The worst isn’t the last thing about the world. It’s the next to the last thing. The last thing is the best. It’s the power from on high that comes down into the world, that wells up from the rock-bottom worst of the world like a hidden spring. Can you believe it? The last, best thing is the laughing deep in the hearts of the saints, sometimes our hearts even. Yes. You are terribly loved and forgiven. Yes. You are healed. All is well.
Let us go forward quietly, forever making for the light, and lifting up our hearts in the knowledge that we are as others are (and that others are as we are), and that it is right to love one another in the best possible way – believing all things, hoping for all things, and enduring all things.…And let us not be too troubled by our weaknesses, for even he who has none, has one weakness, namely that he thinks he has none, and anyone who believes himself to be so perfect or wise would do well to become foolish all over again.
✍🏻
Vincent van Gogh
There is always that edge of doubt.
Trust it, that’s where the new things come from.
If you can’t live with it, get out,
Because when it’s gone, you’re on Automatic,
Repeating something you’ve learned.
Let your prayer be:
Save me from that tempting certainty that
Leads me back from the Edge,
That dark edge where the first light breaks.
✨
The Edge of Doubt by Albert Huffstickler
Thing on my art table…
Chopsticks from Korea House – Jana
Seed from ASG Intensive – Patti
Tea light from Retreat 2012 – Robin
Blue twistie light from Andy n Brandi’s wedding
Paint brushes from Kacie’s old art box
Small souvenir dish from Italy and a pumpkin Anni gifts
along side Faith-Trumps-Fear dogtag
tiny flower pots that just make me happy
One of Pearl’s rocks with a natural cross
Big Purple stone from Bernice’s apartment
Inspirational box I bought in Connecticut
Small leather journal part of art supply shopping trip Chris bought me
Pens, paints, markers, pencils
Books – as many as possible
Journals, Bible, sketch pads
Tweezers – always tweezers
Computer
My framed arts-ing
Other things as well
each small thing connected to someone,
some place.
I am surrounded by what I love,
Who I love,
What I live.
I keep pieces of myself
of moments,
the people, I love.
and I build my days
with bricks, blocks, shells and sparkly rocks
layers of a life
built on grace and gratitude
a firm foundation
which will not be shaken.
🐚
AL
21 different ways to do art therapy and put your thoughts in order
Posted by The Minds Journal EditoriaL| A Better Living, Interesting, The Journal | 16 |
Sometimes, the solution to your problem just won’t come into your head, yet your thoughts are spinning at a 100 kilometers an hour, and you feel like your brain is going to explode.
It’s times like this that you could do with trying some ’art therapy’. At its most basic, the only preparation you need to carry out for this is to grab a pencil and a sheet of paper. Then, just start drawing. It doesn’t even matter what you draw. Within a certain amount of time, your thoughts will become more harmonious and you’ll calm down.
To help you get started, here’s what to do if you’re feeling…
* Tired: draw flowers
* Angry: draw lines
* In pain: build a model
* Bored: color in a sheet of paper in various colors
* Sad: paint a rainbow
* Scared: knit something
* Worried: make a doll
* Indignant: tear a piece of paper into small pieces and arrange it into a pattern
* Anxious: do some origami
* Tense: draw patterns
* Nostalgic: draw a maze
* Disappointed: copy a portrait or painting
* In despair: draw your way out
* Confused: draw an Indian mandala
* That you need to restore your strength: make a landscape painting
* That you can’t make sense of your feelings: paint a self-portrait
* That you need to remember this moment: draw some colored patterns
* That you need to put your thoughts in order: draw honeycombs or squares
* That you need to take the time to make the right choice: draw waves and circles
* That you’re stuck in a rut: draw spirals
* That you need to make sense of your most important goal: draw target symbols.
life: acoustic & amplified 