Encouragement | life: acoustic & amplified

Archive for the category “Encouragement”

27 Jul 2016

quest for that shade of blue

When the light lessens,

Causing colors to lose their courage,

And your eyes fix on the empty distance

That can open on either side

Of the surest line

To make all that is

Familiar and near

Seem suddenly foreign,
When the music of talk

Breaks apart into noise

And you hear your heart louden

While the voices around you

Slow down to leaden echoes

Turning the silence Into something stony and cold,
When the old ghosts come back

To feed on everywhere you felt sure,

Do not strengthen their hunger

By choosing to fear;

Rather, decide to call on your heart

That it may grow clear and free

To welcome home your emptiness

That it may cleanse you

Like the clearest air

You could ever breathe.
Allow your loneliness time

To dissolve the shell of dross

That had closed around you;

Choose in this severe silence

To hear the one true voice

Your rushed life fears;

Cradle yourself like a child

Learning to trust what emerges,

So that gradually

You may come to know
That deep in that black hole

You will find the blue flower

That holds the mystical light

Which will illuminate in you

The glimmer of springtime.

💙

A Blessing for Loneliness by John O’Donohue

Alone and lost

at the edge

of an ocean

of memories,
a heart of the deepest blue

beats

to the slow monotony

of a swaying metronome;
found in the crashing waves

of a dark desolate shore.

The weeping wind,

with its hidden whispers,

murmurs her name;
as nights they walked

hand in hand
flashback into view.
Haunting the torn fabric of his soul.

💔

Shipwrecked heart by AllPoetry member, Halosonthemoon

read the rest here: http://ow.ly/eO4E302oGFH

when I ride the nights ragged hours

when my loneliness rages with ruthless, restless, too warm turning

when heaven is that smudge of light

seen beside the farthest star

when sleep is torn from my hungry grasp

and I am left without an inch of satisfaction

from the feathers beneath my head

when I open my eyes to the same shade of black

I see with them closed

then I feel the disappearance of my desire to conform

my self is borderless at 3 am

my pretensions dissolve into this dark

I surrender to my grief

as well as to my hope

I swim to the other end of the bed

to cooler pastures

I visit the sheep

living among the stuff

down there

I listen as they recited the 23rd Psalm

to reassure my nervous entering

in that strange world

I hear all the sounds from this new dimension

my mind takes on the shape of new perspective

alert to this unusual adventure

I cry a little

laugh a little

think about the glory of love

the world turns on its axis

I breath free

I fly home

💞

I am a sheep

and I like it

because the grass

I lie down in

feels good and the still

waters are restful and right

there if I’m thirsty

and though some valleys

are very chilly there is a long

rod that prods me so I

direct my hooves

the right way

though today

I’m trying hard

to sit at a table

because it’s expected

required really

and my enemies—

it turns out I have enemies—

are watching me eat and

spill my drink

but I don’t worry because

all my enemies do

is watch and I know

I’m safe if I will

just do my best

as I sit on this chair

that wobbles a bit

in the grass

on the side of a hill.

🐏

Here In The Psalm by Sally Fisher

Your great mistake is to act the drama

as if you were alone. As if life

were a progressive and cunning crime

with no witness to the tiny hidden

transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny

the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,

even you, at times, have felt the grand array;

the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding

out your solo voice You must note

the way the soap dish enables you,

or the window latch grants you freedom.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

The stairs are your mentor of things

to come, the doors have always been there

to frighten you and invite you,

and the tiny speaker in the phone

is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into

the conversation. The kettle is singing

even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

have left their arrogant aloofness and

seen the good in you at last. All the birds

and creatures of the world are unutterably

themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

🌎

Everything is Waiting for You by David Whyte

from Everything is Waiting for You

photo sources found at pinterest.com

Posted in Adventure, Alone, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, beloved, Change, Choice, connection, courage, dark, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, grace, Gratitude, healing, laugh, Letting Go, Life, Lonely, Love, Relationships, soul and spirit, Trust, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

26 Jul 2016

so thug

A bold and sustained outbreak of gentleness

We believe in the God of grace.

We follow the Teacher of Love.

We live by the Spirit of mercy.

We trust God’s healing of the world.
When people spread fear and division,

when evil, injustice and oppression thrive,

no political revolution, program or platform will save us,

but only a people transformed by grace and light,

and a bold and sustained outbreak of gentleness.
We will stand up to cynicism, hate and indifference,

and blanket this world with compassion, calm and mercy.

We will proclaim the truth against all resistance.

We will meet fear and hate with healing.

We will obstruct the progress of injustice

with our prayers, our words and our bodies.

We will infest the world with grace and love.
We pray for open hearts and a spirit of deep listening.

We pray for courage to enter the wounds of the world;

for a spirit of peace to face violence with nonviolence;

for patience to answer darkness with light.

We pray for humility to offer ourselves

as the first to be changed.

We pray for one another, for we are one Body.

We devote ourselves to sacrifice and discipline.
Giving thanks for the great spirit of grace

already breathing in us, already rising,

in hope and love, as the gentle people of God,

we go forth.

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

with wings
rough hands
feet on bare earth
I want to become a continent of angels
some common rarity so unexplored
unadmissable
that even I cannot find where I begin or end
.
let this body become a borderless land
full of immigrants
artist and poets
whose only claim to fame is that
they rushed to join this conflagration of
unbound unexplored unknowable art
to enter full existence
.
who is to say what is real
in a universe so wide
and blasted unpretentious
let us join this revolution
wild eyes full hearted
as if this day
is the only day the universe will ever exist
and yes you matter
.
come with me
join asunder
this world is fully ablaze
and yet none of us burn
like a kernel in the heart of the sun
.
now I have come to understand
the language of infinity
it is in the way you dress and speak
and hurry along caressing the earth
and me with it
some vision of your standard uranium golden globe reeking sun
the perfect curve with no edge

———–
Adam A DeFranco (c) 2016

I am always amazed at the layers,

the levels, of the human experience.

The never ending,

ever-evolving, devolving,

shifting, opening,

illumination, illusion-revealing,

conviction shattering, my gospel truth challenging,

deep calling to deep, border breaking,

darkness, light and color discovering, re-discovering.
This way of living I have stumbled onto – into –

not because I’m so smart –

but because I asked,

I was given this priceless gift.

This surprising path

of a pilgrim,

of spiritual growth,

baby stepping my way to

healing, learning,

opening, Mystery,

more always reveals more.

Always re-defining the definitions

of love, abundance,

grace, healing,

truth, error,

good, evil,

joy, suffering,

prosperity, poverty,

spirit, spirituality,

life itself becoming more with each step.

My self righteousness becoming less important

with every glimpse of my Creator, my own Belovedness.

Sometimes I understand how Peter must have felt when he saw the great sheet of unclean animals come down before him,

which God asked him to kill and eat,

He challenged with those same words I have heard from heaven –

“What I have named clean do not proclaim unclean.”

Challenging, very challenging, stuff.

The stuff of humility and opening,

the stuff of learning.

Life changing/giving stuff.

We want to think we know, that we are right.

We want approval, to be able to judge.

We want to earn our way, be worthy.

It will never work. Thankfully.

Then we catch the tiniest of glimpses of the Lover

and we fall on our knees,

breathless, undone,

aware of our need, our misplaced vanity,

stripped of our pride, our shoes,

amazed by what we have encountered, changed forever.

full but ever thirsty for more –
LOVE

💞

I’m convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they’re stones that don’t matter. As long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late to do some good.

💞

— Maya Angelou

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, commitment, community, connection, courage, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Leadership, Letting Go, Life, Love, Passion, politics | Leave a comment

25 Jul 2016

growing wild

Dark and early in your story someone fearful

of your inborn glory took it

and buried it behind your house,

and you, innocently, and wise to save yourself

from their greater wrath,

believed its absence.

It’s not a pompous glory,

insistent on regard, but sure and quiet

as a wildflower’s, asking nothing.

And so you’ve lived—so have we all—

without it, your heart shoveled over

with self-doubt and apology, as if

you have no place or voice here

among angels.

We see you in the cripples who flocked

to Jesus, the mute, the paralyzed,

bent over, shut out, gone mad.

And all he meant to say was this:

you shine. You bring a gift

as no one else, and you belong.

Your Word deserves a hearing,

and this world needs your beauty

and your grace. There is no rank

you fall below, no worth you fail to match.

Your shuttering was evil, and God

wants it undone, and wants you whole.

And so she takes you by the hand

and raises you to stand, to walk, to speak.

She listens to your song with joy.

She rains upon the earth

until you are unafraid of your radiance

and all our houses are surrounded by wildflowers.

______________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

Wildflowers grow without

discipline,

rooted in the secret order

of quietness.

Edges get rounded down.

Nature offers no straight lines

or right angles.

Wouldn’t you rather run your

fingers through black loam

than scroll through golden rules?

What you really seek

is the fragrance of chaos,

like a moth on a purple aster,

the intimate fragility

of mountain meadows.

Surrender first.

Strip off the armor

of Should.

Then fight your valiant battle

for beauty.

___________
Alfred K. LaMotte

…

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow:

they do not toil or spin.

~Matthew 6:28

Do you suppose she’s a wild flower?

Dancing light and free

Do you suppose she’s a wildflower?

As we all wish to be

Let yourself go

be drawn to what you love

– Rumi

God made black sheep and dandelions

God said they were good

God made your heart sweet

He sees you cryin’

Oh now can’t you see

God made you and me

just like every star

to shine just as we are
there’s a garden many know

pretty maids all in a row

looking all they same are they

mother, may I? they do say
some folks see wishes

some folks see weeds

some folks see diamonds

whiles stones others see

some folks don’t get me

as I need to be

I am a wildflower

dancing so free
God made black sheep and dandelions

God said they were good

God made your heart sweet

He sees you cryin’

Oh now can’t you see

God made you and me

just like every star

to shine just as we are
there’s a sky above we see

stars come out to play at night

they don’t ask what they can be

they shine their light for all to see
some folks see storms clouds

some folks see rains

some folks see nightmares

whiles dreams others see

some folks don’t get me

as I need to be

I am a star child

twinkling so free
God made black sheep and dandelions

God said they were good

God made your heart sweet

He sees you cryin’

Oh now can’t you see

God made you and me

just like every star

to shine just as we are

💫

buy this goodness!

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, Dancing, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, fun, Growth, healing, Impossible, inspiration, intimacy, Joy, Letting Go, Life, Love, nature | Leave a comment

21 Jul 2016

bits and pieces

I gave myself permission to feel and experience all of my emotions. In order to do that, I had to stop being afraid to feel. In order to do that, I taught myself to believe that no matter what I felt or what happened when I felt it, I would be okay. – Iyanla Vanzant

I have walked through many lives,

some of them my own,

and I am not who I was,

though some principle of being

abides, from which I struggle

not to stray.

When I look behind,

as I am compelled to look

before I can gather strength

to proceed on my journey,

I see the milestones dwindling

toward the horizon

and the slow fires trailing

from the abandoned camp-sites,

over which scavenger angels

wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe

out of my true affections,

and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled

to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind

the manic dust of my friends,

those who fell along the way,

bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn,

exulting somewhat,

with my will intact to go

wherever I need to go,

and every stone on the road

precious to me.

In my darkest night,

when the moon was covered

and I roamed through wreckage,

a nimbus-clouded voice

directed me:

“Live in the layers,

not on the litter.”

Though I lack the art

to decipher it,

no doubt the next chapter

in my book of transformations

is already written.

📝

The Layers by Stanley Kunitz

there are people and places

which live inside me

I feel them

as I spin the kaleidoscope wheel

they come into focus

moments

smells

textures

visuals

each hold exquisite love

each hold delicately intense, brutal, suffering

each hold ruthless trust,

radical hope,

extreme faith,

continual healing.

each person,

each place a threshold

of practical practice,

of growth and becoming,

of wrestling with letting go,

of spiritual teaching towards love,

of defending my tenderness,

of stepping into ‘I am’,

of allowing myself,

of removing the toxic tarter buildup of my own soul,

of seeing glimpses of the unlimited, ever-unfolding mystery.

I’m so grateful for these people,

these places,

the ones I carry,

seen,

and those still before me,

as yet, unseen.

🕘

Just past dawn, the sun stands

with its heavy red head

in a black stanchion of trees,

waiting for someone to come

with his bucket

for the foamy white light,

and then a long day in the pasture.

I too spend my days grazing,

feasting on every green moment

till darkness calls,

and with the others

I walk away into the night,

swinging the little tin bell

of my name.

🔔

Birthday Poem by Ted Kooser

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, beloved, Change, Choice, commitment, confidence, connection, courage, determination, do, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, Freedom, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, Purpose | Leave a comment

20 Jul 2016

mirror mirror

Reborn as a court reporter

Inside a waking dream

Trapped between misspelling Subpoena and shouting guilty over and over

In a feudal land someone personified Justice as a woman, as a joke.
Oh the bliss that reason brings

Cold, calculated, harmony of all things

Where we agree, to agree, to disagree

That we can all agree on something.

“If only I got what I deserved”

Said no man ever.

The wrongs of another cannot be punished too harshly

Until you turn the eye inward,

To the mote and see yourself,

Know yourself,

Judge yourself,

Find mercy for yourself if you can.

Such a futile exercise for man

When you are done with yourself,

Ask if you can ever withhold forgiveness again?

🙀

Finding Mercy by Charles Cooper

We are all of us judged every day. We are judged by the face that looks back at us from the bathroom mirror. We are judged by the faces of the people we love and by the faces and lives of our children and by our dreams. We are judged by the faces of the people we do not love. Each day finds us at the junction of many roads, and we are judged as much by the roads we have not taken as by the roads we have.
The New Testament proclaims that at some unforeseeable time in the future, God will ring down the final curtain on history, and there will come a Day on which all our days and all the judgments upon us and all our judgments upon each other will themselves be judged. The judge will be Christ. In other words, the one who judges us most finally will be the one who loves us most fully.
Romantic love is blind to everything except what is lovable and lovely, but Christ’s love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ’s love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy. The worst sentence Love can pass is that we behold the suffering that Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal. The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one.

⚖

~Frederick Buechner originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words

Somewhere between what it feels like, to be at

one with the sea, and to understand the sea as

mere context for the boat whose engine refuses

finally to turn over: yeah, I know the place—

stumbled into it myself, once; twice, almost. All

around and in between the two trees that

grow there, tree of compassion and—

much taller— tree of pity, its bark

more bronze, the snow  settled as if an openness of any kind meant, as well,

a woundedness that, by filling it, the snow

might heal…You know what I think? I think if we’re

lost, you should know exactly where, by now; I’ve

watched you stare long and hard enough at the map

already…I’m beginning to think I may never

not be undecided, about all sorts of things: whether

snow really does resemble the broken laughter

of the long-abandoned when what left comes back

big-time; whether gratitude’s just a haunted

space like any other. This place sounds daily

more like a theater of war, each time I listen to it—

loss, surprise, victory, being only three of the countless

fates, if you want to call them that, that we don’t

so much live with, it seems, as live for now among. If as

close as we’re ever likely to get, you and I, is this—this close—

⛵️

Carl Phillips.

Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 19, 2016, by the Academy of American Poets

I am not your enemy.

I am for you, not against.

I am not like your anger,

I am not your fear.

I am your joy, your peace.

I am your breathing, your heartbeat,

your blood, your Being.

I am the fullness of you,

unfolding as you let me.

I have only blessing for you,

like a mother for her newborn.

I am your perfection, longing for you.

My judgment is not harsh, but pure mercy,

my seeing your brilliance folded in the bud,

my knowledge of your beauty waiting in you.

I do not judge your doubts

but give you strength to tear them open

and find in them the mirror of your grace.

I know your childish fears,

your helpless lashing out,

I have seen the rage seeping into you.

My wrath burns not against you but that lie.

I will hold you until you quiet in my arms.

You are angry because you are afraid

that I am not here for you

but I am here

for you.

Be still, and let me hold you.
__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Choice, determination, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, focus, grace, Gratitude, Judging, Letting Go, Life, Love, Peace, People, perceptions, Poetry, Prayer | Leave a comment

18 Jul 2016

threads that won’t break

On Dec 3, 2014 (2 year anniversary of my living death in the dark night of the soul, I got a post titled Love never Dies from Jen Lemen at Hopeful World http://hopefulworld.org

Here’s a taste of what it said:
I am struck also as I write to you from this wintery desk, that building our capacity for stillness helps so much when the wild comes to our restless souls. Without that practice of being quiet, it’s easy to be scared when our wild, instinctual thoughts pop up. It’s easy to think that they are bad somehow or in need of corralling. But the practice of quiet and stillness helps us recognize our instinctual knowing for what it is: a call to our most true nature. A call to a kind of expression that is more vibrant, more textured, more passionate, more alive–even if it’s a little bit messy. Even if it kicks up a little bit of shame that we are this human, this raw.
So I invite you today to sit with me for three magic minutes. I’ll be right here with you, my own mind a rollercoaster of crazy, of frantic, of nonsensical worrisome things. I’ll sit with you and notice everything in my own soul, while you notice everything in yours and together we will begin to knit together an understanding of what’s underneath that noise: a gorgeous, exquisite tapestry of human longing designed to carry us to an awake magnificent place.
Will you join me?

Setting the timer now.

Let me know how it is on the other side.
With so much love,

Jen
It’s now 3.5 years later and Jen Lemen is still bringing all that, and more to me, to you, to the shaky, hoping world, to the edges of eternity…love never dies.
Today, in this crazy, brutal brutal place, where we ask…
how can these two people be our Presidential choices?
how can people keep killing other people?
how can I deal with the grief and the fear of this?
how can I help?
what is the solution?
what is my part?
Jen Lemen is doing her part. She’s offering Soul Snacks –
http://www.thewayofdevotion.org/soul-snacks
Amazing gifts to all of of struggling, hungry, hurting, angry, frustrated pilgrims and poets.
Right now she has open enrollment and I have just this…
Don’t wait! http://www.thewayofdevotion.org/soul-snacks
Gobble this up, savor it a bite at a time, eat them from start to finish, or nibble from the middle to each edge of crust. Savory, delectable soul-spices involving all your most subtle senses.
http://www.thewayofdevotion.org/soul-snacks

💞

Keep wrestling, burn, scream, let go, melt, let your heart keep breaking for the sake of your heart, keep saying the names of your people, fiercely defend your tenderness, think, grieve, repair, renew, continue to do what’s in your heart to do…each thread matters…each color makes the world more beautiful…
in the end, only love is eternal, only love remains…
http://www.thewayofdevotion.org/soul-snacks

🔥

We are God’s thread

weaving through the tapestry,

the masterpiece is slowly

created.

Potential for beauty, we can’t know,

unfolding,

becoming,

revealing glory

so bright

it makes the sun squint

and reach for sunglasses.

Brilliance so far beyond ourselves

we go shining into the gray

as we open to the new jewels appearing,

sparkling in the moonlight.

As we step into the needle’s eye

the angels catch their breath,

cheering our blazing garments,

dazzled by the vision

God is revealing through the creation.

As we surrender to the greatest mystery,

the beauty we inhabit

becomes us,

walking in humble clay

eyes out shining the stars

set in the heavens.

Until we totally disappear and all that’s left

is holiness

so pure

all we can do

bow in wonder

at ourselves

and give thanks

as the silk thread

becomes liquid gold and silver

pure and simple

glory

as we realize our place in the whole.

We are the temple of our creator.

The home of God.

😎

As deftly and finally as one pulls out a thread

someone is weaving them, gracefully tying them,

minute and irreversible.
In the towering sky, even under the fortress,

root tendrils muscle in and bind ligaments

through an abyss we had been told was absolute.
No enormity of terror

can keep up

with the steady, unseen healing.
Before the assault, the horrible wound,

gaping and exposed,

the stitching has already begun.
Even as we sigh in our own world,

moving on, separate,

we are being sewn in.
In the earthquake, the collapsing mountains,

not a bit of rubble falls

on the path from the temple.
If you could hold your immortal soul

in your hands, you would hardly recognize it

from one moment to the next.
Your grave is already empty.
__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

photo sources found at pinterest.com

Posted in action, Adventure, Alone, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, community, compassion, confidence, connection, courage, Dancing, dark, Death, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, Glory, Gratitude, Grieving, healing, home, Hope, Imagine, inspiration, laugh, Letting Go, Life, light, Love, Miracles, music, mystery, Passion, Patience, Peace, People, perceptions, Poetry, power, Prayer, Purpose, quiet | Leave a comment

15 Jul 2016

how far will you go?

Better to live your life open rather than exist on borrowed time, waiting for the great unmasking.

– Kate Jacobs

love is the flame
all people yearn for the flame

some people never discover there actually is a flame

some people ignore the flame

some people avoid the flame

some people examine the flame

some people research the flame

some people control the flame

some people fear the flame

some people are fooled by fake flame

some people admire the flame

some people use the flame

some people walk on the flame

some people dance with the flame

some people dance in the flame

some people become the flame

some people are consumed by the flame
your choice…

how will you burn?

🔥

Those who are drawn to the root of love are mystics. Mystics are not satisfied with the surface patterns of love, with the emotional tangles and insecurities of human loving. They seek a purer wine, a more potent passion. They need the essence of love, its divine substance.

~ Irina Tweedie

On the day I died

water ran through pipes,

footsteps identified people in the house and

the dogs nails clicked quickly on the wood floors above my head,

insisting it was time to go out for relief.

I still needed coffee,

light with cream,

2 sugars.

The sun was bright

and I remember the sky was that deep blue,

romantically named, azurite.

There was cockscomb,

half alive in pots near the wooden footbridge I walked over.

I used to love them when I was alive.

I touched their red, velvety, blooms seeking to feel something.

I mistook fluttering angel wings for birds,

battles fought,

just beyond where I lay

on the words of Wendell Berry –

the only thread

keeping me tethered to this world.

I sat on benches beside ghosts

of those who had gone before me.

I could still only feel them beside me,

I was in the world between worlds.

There was darkness, a fire swamp, screaming, clashes of swords,

I could not save myself.

God was everywhere.

I found myself in a boat,

where I stayed for 2 years, until,

in recent weeks,

the call came to step out,

to start walking on water.

Late in the day,

I stood in the bathroom,

accepting the most insulting job offer I have ever received,

then sat on a stool,

trying to act as if I was alive,

pretending to look for puzzle pieces,

slightly aware of the colors and shapes,

singing echoes of songs I used to love,

with my beautiful Robin,

who seemed very much alive.

🔥

In Memoriam of my death, consumed by the flame,

December 3, 2012 –

may I be remembered as

Daniel J O’Connell having the:

Spirit of a warrior

Soul of a poet

Irradiat your mind with the light from within, allow your existence to move along within the unbroken continuity of nature. The ideal of authenticity lies deep in the heart of one’s union to the world not the possession of it. The grandeur of unity holds a definitive place in the infinite. When you calibrate your spirit with that of the world you are left open to respond to your life harmoniously with the universe. Unmask your illusions from those artificial ideas you have build your lives upon with walls and boundaries solidifying your thoughts about a tragic disassociation to nature. It’s up to you to be open now or wait for the great unmasking…the choice is yours but unmasking now allows you to reconcile your existence while you still have the chance to live it.

– Lissette T. Hesmadt

We have known and have believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who remain in love remain in God and God remains in them. 1 John ‪4:16‬

No matter the results and outcomes,
the thousand possibilities,

you are here now.
Why even try to trace

what the beggar will do with your money?

Let your giving be the whole horizon.
Be lovingly present

and wars and stars and grief and cats alike

will be unable to trouble you.
At the center of the world and in each breath

this is the holy temple, the birthing moment:

giving and receiving love. That is all.
This is the sacred point,

the love in you

meeting the love in the world.
However broken or weary you are,

bring yourself here, in love,

now.
__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

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

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Burnign Bridges, Change, Choice, courage, dark, Death, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Glory, Gospel, grace, Gratitude, Growth, Habits, healing, home, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, Passion, Poetry, power, Purpose | Leave a comment

13 Jul 2016

1 Comment

otters and birthdays and glimpses of the mystery

Yeah, so, the past month has been an intense one for me in every way. A bit emotionally brutal. We can all relate, I’m sure. It’s shown me a lot of new things about myself, also revealed some new glimpses of this mystical mystery named, so simply, “Love,” in our language.

I’ve been a student of the nature of Love for the past 7 years, which doesn’t seem very long, now that I write it down, but, I have to report, just this short time of study, it has changed me in every area of my life.

My studies are always, first and foremost, practical. To me nothing I ‘believe’ is worth anything if it does not actually work in my living to bring me healing, make me a better human, remove my baggage to reveal my highest and best self, lead me into paths of peace and load my arms with fruit to share with fellow pilgrims along the way…and, so, I began by asking God to reveal what love was and how love worked.

My first flash came in 2009, riding on a CT commuter train from New Haven to Branford, looking at the marsh fly by. I had been asking for some days, intensely seeking, when God showed himself to me as ‘LOVE.’ That brief instant changed everything for me. I experienced the Aleph of The Mystery and left that train, completely changed a flash or, in real time less than 30 minutes…

Many wonderful writers have helped me along this open-ended, unlimited path of discovery on this topic. I must give much beautiful credit to Henri Nouwen, who helped me early on in my excavation of this topic. His revelations, and life surrendered to this mystery, have inspired much learning in my own voyage on this simple, yet so radical, path.

Over these years, I felt lead to share some of my tiny bits of insight with others – it has just been so amazing! So beautiful! So everything – I just wanted others to open to it as well, to learn and heal along with me! Over these years I have learned to be a writer and a poet. Until recently I didn’t feel I could claim those ‘titles,’ but I do now, just another way love has changed me. I am so grateful.

This brings us to yesterday, which brings us to Frederick Buechner’s 90th birthday! Buechner is one of the best, most beautiful, writers ever. Sometimes I stop breathing when I read his words. I won’t say more, at this moment, as this is becoming a very long post, but here’s my best advice: read him!

Recently someone, somewhere, on Facebook, posted words by poet, Fred LaMotte. They deeply touched me and so I ‘friended’ him. Then he began posting his words and I found myself on Amazon ordering one of his books. I received it last week, and it has been moving me into some very deep waters.

Yeah, so, back to yesterday, I re-posted a happy birthday write-up about Buechner and then…

I got this comment from Fred LaMotte:

He was the reason I became a teacher and a school chaplain. When I was a 10th grader at Exeter Academy (near Boston) he was the school chaplain. It was before he became a writer. One dreary morning in late Winter, we were 700 half asleep boys in morning ‘Chapel’ (it was just an assembly really), and decided to read to us. He read the entire 7th chapter of ‘The Wind In The Willows,’ ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn.’ It was very long and I think I might have been the only one stayed awake. It was amazing. Not only did it show me my first real piece of spiritual writing, but I thought, “Wow! This is his job? Reading to people about the great God Pan? I want to do this!” Thank you Frederick Buechner.

💞

WOW!! Then Fred LaMotte shared that chapter of the Wind and the Willows, ya know, the one that inspired some pretty intense poetry, which is, at this moment plowing up some new fields in my back forty…

Wow upon WOW!

Here’s that link. My advice: Read it!!

http://yourradiance.blogspot.com/2013/03/piper-at-gates-of-dawn.html?m=1

I have not read The Wind in the Willows since I was a teenager, and, at that time I remember thinking it was rather stupid. My thoughts being something like, ‘Good grief, what in the heck is this about?’

Yesterday, I finally ‘got it!’ I broke down. I took my shoes off and bowed to the glory. Yesterday, a gift of love I offered was returned to me, unaccepted. I ‘got it!’ I broke down. I took my shoes off and bowed to the glory. There’s no right or wrong here, just gift. I choose to be only grateful to continue on in the, ‘yes and amen!’ of it all.

I have no idea what Love (God) will teach me next. I am a very humble beginner. No Master here. Just a girl who cannot believe how lucky I am to be on this narrow road. A very unlikely pilgrim, I. Always wearing inappropriate shoes for climbing these steep hills, but somehow, always getting the view of the most beautiful sunsets imaginable. I guess it’s true what Babe Ruth said, ‘You can’t beat a man who keeps getting up!’

Here’s a song I wrote for my children’s musical about my life of faith, named: The Fantastical Inside-Out-Upside-Down Journey of a Rich Little Poor Girl

You Otter Know (verses spoken in the style of Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked by Cage the Elephant/choruses in Sinatra style)

I was walking in the forest

I was feeling all alone

The birds and bees were sleeping,

the weeping willow weeping
Then I heard a little creature

Start moving oh so slow

and the little brook began to play

music with its toes

the woodpecker was keeping time

upon that tall oak tree

and I could not help start dancing

cause I knew it was for me

and as I whirled and twirled about

I came upon a log

and the beaver and the otter (Frank Sinatra style Beaver. Sammy Davis Otter)

were acting more like hogs (pushing each other to get to the log stage with microphone)

and then they each began to croon

they’re words were oh so rare

I stood there for a moment

my foot still in the air
and they sang to me…
You otter know I love you

loved you from the start

(if you’ll beaver me

then I’ll beaver you

You never walk alone)

You otter know I love you

love your precious heart

(beaver me it’s true

I’ve always loved you

You’re never far from home)
and the band it just kept playing

and my happy heart did gasp

Cause this was so much better

than that silly talking a**

uhhh donkey
Then my heart it felt so happy

and my eyes at last could see

That though I hadn’t been aware

You’d never once left me

and as I danced on down that path

I swear I sang this song

The one my friends had written,

which had been there all along
and I sang…
You otter know I love you

loved you from the start

(if you’ll beaver me

then I’ll beaver you

You never walk alone)

You otter know I love you

love your precious heart

(beaver me it’s true

I’ve always loved you

You’re never far from home

💞

Ephesians 1:4

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.

New Living Translation

You don’t have to melt

until you are ready.

Remember this:
Each moil of your unoiled joints,

every numb stiff gristle of resistance,

cramp of anger, clabber of shame,
clot of envy, opinion or belief,

is simply a mass of refusal

contracted into “me,”
a particle afraid to waltz

with its field, a wave

that will not settle to its sea,
a sky who thinks it is a cloud,

a self who didn’t give up

I-dentity…
Don’t let go until you’re

ready, friend. You have forever.

You remember this:
To melt is not to pass away,

but to pulverize diamonds

with your dancing,
watch the spiraling fire

of your body, and witness

the whirled.

🔥

Alfred K. LaMotte

Some mornings

I wake up a king,

anointed, anticipated,

shining.
Some mornings

I wake up a pilgrim,

on a journey yet unseen,

but on a road laid out

with adventures to be met.
Some mornings

I wake up a mule.

No power to wield,

nowhere to go,

just me, just here,

dull and pointless.
Those days

I must be

most vigilant and ready,

for my master

is a good samaritan

and I never know

when I will be needed

for something luminous.

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

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

Posted in action, Adventure, Alone, art, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, Beliefs, beloved, Blessing, Blog, Change, Choice, commitment, community, confidence, connection, courage, create, determination, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, friendship, fun, Glory, Gospel, grace, Gratitude, Growth, healing, home, Hope, Imagine, intimacy, Joy, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, Passion, Patience, Peace, People, Quotes

12 Jul 2016

I am fascinated by bold individualism – Charles Cooper (meee tooooo!!!❤️)

dark matter sutra

last nite in the dark sky

a fox was calling

this eerie voice scathing scratching the air

scaring every living thing around

straight out of a horror movie or worst

some scary witch after me

for all my past sins and debauchery

I was ready to lock the doors

grab a pitch fork

throw the covers over my head

who knows really what a fox really is

maybe a prisoner in a fur body

trying to get out

some convict from a strange distant galaxy

“ .. and for your crimes against humanity

we shall set you on another world

known as earth

in strange body

with strange bedfellows

whizzing bullets

and hungry wolves”

no matter what religion or science says

you never really know

who or what is in these other bodies

each of us stardust

catapulted from the infinite womb

dark matter given form

like blue hanuman

or immortal sunlight

I will call out to you from the wilderness

a purple cloud in a wide room

a child with a halo

a bed of moss

or some eagle soaring above the plane

in a total act of rebellion

from his dark matter sutra

NO PATH
‘There is No Path that Goes all the Way’

:-Han Shan
Not that it stops us looking

for the full continuation.
The one line in the poem

we can start and follow

straight to the end. The fixed belief

we can hold, facing a stranger
that saves us the trouble

of a real conversation.
But one day you are not

just imagining an empty chair
where your loved one sat.

You are not just telling a story
where the bridge is down

and there’s nowhere to cross.
You are not just trying to pray

to a God you always imagined

would keep you safe.
No, you’ve come to a place

where nothing you’ve done

will impress and nothing you

can promise will avert
the silent confrontation,

the place where

your body already seems to know

the way, having kept
to the last, its own secret

reconnaissance.
But still,

there is no path

that goes all the way,
one conversation

leads to another,
one breath to the next

until
there’s no breath at all,

just

the inevitable

final release

of the burden.
And then,

wouldn’t your life

have to start

all over again

for you to know

even a little

of who you had been?
…
Excerpt from ‘NO PATH”

From RIVER FLOW: New and Selected Poems by David Whyte

return to your own path

love leads us ever onward

to the open skies of freedom

❤️

photo sources @www.pinterest.com

Posted in Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, confidence, connection, courage, determination, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Growth, healing, home, Hope, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, Passion, Quotes | Leave a comment

11 Jul 2016

peace. love. seal the deal. – Miles

White and black cannot be found

in the ruins and valleys of a human face.

You’re the dust in a wrinkled rainbow,

whorled pallet of earth tones,

ginger, sorrel, burnt sienna.
Who called you “white,”

that disdain for shadows,

color of the fear of falling

through the prism of contradictions?
You are not white, you are oak,

apple wood and dandelion.

Make wine of yourself.

Make a barrel of your bones.

Acquire the flavor of your ancestors.
Who called you “black,”

that abstraction of a laughing tear?

You are not black, you have sown

sunset in your cheek furrows.

You are banyan, and mahogany,

kola nut and olive, cocoa bean of grief,

kinnikinnik of the sacred pipe.

You are the night.
Voracious love has dipped us both

in honey, meshed our dreams

in darkest cilia, netted our souls

like mushrooms in sweet loam,

the wild manure of one dragon.
Through innumerable pungent roots

the same juice bears us upward

into starlight.

🌠

Who Told You? by Alfred K. LaMotte

my heart hurts today

for this pain.

I feel great sorrow,

shattering grief,

love cracks me open,

allows me to feel this

hurricane of rage,

this fraction of our creation –

soul division.
for what we,

as human-kind,

have chosen to accept

within the soil of our borders,

our birthright is so much more.

we are each beloved.

we are royal, each and every one.
sadness sits on me,

a heavy fog,

as I drive,

wait,

pay,

that smarmy man

with the weird goatee,

wearing the faded Jack Daniels t-shirt,

I try to love him –

I humbly admit my failure today,

I promise to keep trying,

it is my only hope to change this world.

I return to my place in this universe,

the one I belong to for this moment –

I walk a mile quickly

my angst

mixing with grief

tears won’t stop

I walk this beach,

so familiar,

yet always new.

I pick up rocks,

I move from rocks,

to sand,

to benches.

I stand while the gulls float,

so easy,

so secure,

so assured,

so secure,

so loved,

so free.

As I watch

peace fills me…
I let go…
always a brutal struggle for this stubborn girl,

(I prefer to name that quality ‘determined’)

always, always, worth it.
trusting life is a ruthless business.

I choose to live,

I choose to feel,

I choose to open,

I choose to pay attention,

I choose to connect,

I choose to participate,

I choose to love,

ruthlessly.

What about you?

💞

God grant you the eyes of heaven

to see each person’s divine belovedness

and so find joy.
God grant you a listening heart

to hear the cries of the silenced,

and so gain wisdom.
God grant you humility

that unburdened by yourself

you may be free.
God grant you courage

to enter the world’s dark wounds,

and so bring healing.
God grant you patience,

to know the strength of the long journey,

and so be given hope.
God grant you a heart of love,

to be moved to action,

and so receive deep peace.
God grant you God’s own spirit

to share in the healing of the world,

and so know God’s deep delight.

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, commitment, compassion, confidence, connection, courage, determination, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Happiness, home, Hope, Imagine, inspiration, Letting Go, Life, light, Love, mystery, Passion, Peace, power, Prayer | Leave a comment

life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Encouragement”

quest for that shade of blue

so thug

growing wild

bits and pieces

mirror mirror

threads that won’t break

how far will you go?

otters and birthdays and glimpses of the mystery

I am fascinated by bold individualism – Charles Cooper (meee tooooo!!!❤️)

peace. love. seal the deal. – Miles

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Meta

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Encouragement”

Post Navigation

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Meta