some years ask questions
some shake the foundations of our worlds
in a year of answers
be as quiet as possible
practice solitude
acquaintance yourself with silence
open your inner ears
listen for voices from other dimensions
care for your soul
allow deep mystery to bloom
sit in nature
find spots of beauty to fill you up
take time
go slow
so you can hear everything
waiting to be revealed
for such a time as this
🌪
AL
Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we would had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.
– Joseph Campbell
Security is a funny thing. We long for it, but it is all too often an illusion, one that covers over our authentic path, one we pay the ultimate price for. Security is a sick-cure for what ails us on the deepest levels. What we really long for is a life that is infused with purpose and connection. I know many people who promised themselves that they would live their ‘real-life’ after retiring from the quest for security. When they arrived ‘there’, they were either entirely exhausted from decades of falsity, or they had forgotten the ‘real-life’ that called them. This is what happens when we bury our precious life below mountains of obligation and distraction. We can’t get out from under them. We are only here for the blink of an eye. Better to substitute the illusion of sick-cure-ity for something authentic and alive. Better to find safety in the heart of a life deeply lived. Better to live true.
– Jeff Brown
On this day of your life I believe God wants you to know…
…that safety is not the thing you should look for in the
future. Joy is what you should look for.
Security and joy may not come in the same package.
They can…but they also cannot.
There is no guarantee.
If your primary concern is a guarantee of security,
you may never experience the truest joys of life.
This is not a suggestion that you become reckless,
but it is an invitation to at least become daring.
– Neale Donald Walsh
TRUST THE PROMISE
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
– John O’Donohue
within the spaces between silences
there grows a green vine
with beautiful fruit
hanging
luscious
calling
healing
bountiful
filling
loving
living
deep
juicy
running down our chins and elbows
until we fill with joy
and laugh with delight
until we face our sorrow
and allow our salt to run and heal our wounds
until we feel what we need to feel
and let these emotions have their way with us
until we embrace this mystery
and open our arms to life
this,
my friends,
is how I define my life’s most important word:
music
🎼
AL
this birth of awaiting changes
this for that
tit for tat
tuxedo memories
pinstripe debonair
glamour hangs
like confetti in the air
life goes
round and round
flinging dreams
synthetic roads
leading nowhere
screams and laugher
hardest when not fair
up one side now
down the other there
we hang on
we stomp our feet
and swear
this ain’t right
this we cannot bear
life goes forward
ever on and on
wanting only
to change our point of view
we are loved
no matter what we lose
love will win
love’s always life’s sweet muse
sight or blind
the vision ours to choose
❤️
AL
expectancy. awe
Anticipation of
coming back to life
moving through the grey
into new
love
joy
peace
light
There is no guarantee of anything in this lifetime
however there are amazing things hidden
which bring forth their fruit
in their season
Sometimes it feels like it just won’t happen,
then…
flash, boom, bang
and you got okra up to the second floor windows!
Go ahead, live with the hope
Plan with the expectancy
of all good things
come in their time
💞
AL
It rains on the just and the unjust.
💞
On this day of your life I believe God wants you to know…
…that yearning for a new way will not produce it.
Only ending the old way can do that.
You cannot hold onto the old all the while
declaring that you want something new.
The old will defy the new;
the old will deny the new;
the old will decry the new.
There is only one way to bring in the new.
You must make room for it.
💞
– Neale Donald Walsh
SUNDAY MORNING WITH THE SENSATIONAL NIGHTINGALES
by Billy Collins
It was not the Five Mississippi Blind Boys
who lifted me off the ground
that Sunday morning
as I drove down for the paper, some oranges, and bread.
Nor was it the Dixie Hummingbirds
or the Soul Stirrers, despite their quickening name,
or even the Swan Silvertones
who inspired me to look over the commotion of trees
into the open vault of the sky.
No, it was the Sensational Nightingales
who happened to be singing on the gospel
station early that Sunday morning
and must be credited with the bumping up
of my spirit, the arousal of the mice within.
I have always loved this harmony,
like four, sometimes five trains running
side by side over a contoured landscape––
make that a shimmering, red-dirt landscape,
wildflowers growing along the silver tracks,
lace tablecloths covering the hills,
the men and women in white shirts and dresses
walking in the direction of a tall steeple.
Sunday morning in a perfect Georgia.
But I am not here to describe the sound
of the falsetto whine, sepulchral bass,
alto and tenor fitted snugly in between;
only to witness my own minor ascension
that morning as they sang, so parallel,
about the usual themes,
the garden of suffering,
the beads of blood on the forehead,
the stone before the hillside tomb,
and the ancient rolling waters
we would all have to cross some day.
God bless the Sensational Nightingales,
I thought as I turned up the volume,
God bless their families and their powder blue suits.
They are a far cry from the quiet kneeling
I was raised with,
a far, hand-clapping cry from the candles
that glowed in the alcoves
and the fixed eyes of saints staring down
from their corners.
Oh, my cap was on straight that Sunday morning
and I was fine keeping the car on the road.
No one would ever have guessed
I was being lifted into the air by nightingales,
hoisted by their beaks like a long banner
that curls across an empty blue sky,
caught up in the annunciation
of these high, most encouraging tidings.
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action: and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad.
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
🔥
– Sonnet CXXIX, William Shakespeare
I believe it is no ones intention to live as a perpetual victim.
No one ever said they wanted that as a career,
wanted to spend their valuable life having no personal power –
yet how many are there
trapped by the belief that life,
God,
some ‘other’
has taken something from them
which they should have?
they deserve(d) it
they didn’t want to lose what’s gone
(I understand that)
but now it’s gone
and they’ve been wronged
they spin in the agony of not controlling
someone,
deity,
something, anything
else.
They can’t see what they’re doing,
they can’t hear what they’re saying,
they can’t see how they’re living,
because they are sure
sure they are right,
sure they deserve to be this grand victim,
sure the very best of life,
their very happiest,
is behind them now.
They may say ‘they are not special’,
but in reality they believe they are SO special
life should only, always, give them what they want…
no matter what.
I used to try to convince them otherwise,
spend massive energy,
years invested in living with people determined not to see,
not to let go,
not to find happiness and peace.
People refusing to do the work to gain truth and freedom.
now I take it case by case,
I trust God enough to allow them to come,
allow them to go.
I do my own hard work
of letting go
of letting go
of letting go…
of loving with no expectations of return…
of finding out new insights about my own heart…
of standing in my own healing,
sight,
strength,
without being distracted by the manipulation
of people living as victims.
I remind myself (over and over) everyone has a right to live as they choose,
truth is never an argument to be won.
Then I give thanks that I chose something new for myself.
I pray for each person in the world to live with peace and joy…
I grieve my own, very personal losses,
and, eventually,
life goes on…
🌀
AL
Amidst ten thousand losses and swirling joys.
At this very instant on the sacred Earth I wait.
Come to us Beauty, Wisdom, Goodness, Peace, Solace, Grace, Counsel, Love.
See the open archway this cold night
Air, rich as gold flows.
Fine snow, glistens our faces. Each flake,
every exquisite crystal blossom is the covenant of your love
told a thousand, thousand times.
– Patricia Van Ness
Listen to Serenity Fisher sing So Far From Oh Well
A sense of place results gradually and unconsciously from inhabiting a landscape over time, becoming familiar with its physical properties, accruing history within its confines.- Kent Rydon
Photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT
🌀
I have abandoned the dream kitchens for a low fire
and a prescriptive literature of the spirit;
a storm snores on the desolate sea.
The nearest shop is four miles away—
when I walk there through the shambles
of the morning for tea and firelighters
the mountain paces me in a snow-lit silence.
My days are spent in conversation
with deer and blackbirds;
at night fox and badger gather at my door.
I have stood for hours
watching a salmon doze in the tea-gold dark,
for months listening to the sob story
of a stone in the road, the best,
most monotonous sob story I have ever heard.
I am an expert on frost crystals
and the silence of crickets, a confidant
of the stinking shore, the stars in the mud—
there is an immanence in these things
which drives me, despite my scepticism,
almost to the point of speech,
like sunlight cleaving the lake mist at morning
or when tepid water
runs cold at last from the tap.
I have been working for years
on a four-line poem
about the life of a leaf;
I think it might come out right this winter.
🌀
The Mayo Tao by Derek Mahon
Curator’s note: “Mayo” refers to the County Mayo, in western Ireland.
I want to make a poem
that slips into the heart stream
quietly, tenderly,
with no great splash
just a graceful entry,
with minimal ripples
which plunges deeply upon entering
and allows the mud to settle gracefully around it.
I want to make a poem
which allows the heart to trust,
to open,
to flower in it’s own time
knowing, for sure,
it is dependable,
steady,
written to last
through the fiercest storms
though the world burn
and the mountains crumble
words of love
so beautiful
so eternal
they come to life
each time they are read,
or spoken
and anyone who dares to read the poem I make
cannot help but
find within themselves
clouds of peace
wrapped up in thick blankets of joy
and will forever know for sure
they are
beloved
❤️
AL
Everything real comes through the heart. When it is truly opened, everything secondary falls away- egoic glory, fame and fortune, substitute gratifications. The heart doesn’t care about such things. It doesn’t hold it against you if you don’t own your own home, achieve your goals, have a perfect body. The heart doesn’t care what you have earned or accumulated. No matter our seeming differences, we are all the same when the heart gate opens. Deep feeling levels the playing field.
Love is the great equalizer.
– Jeff Brown
walking while waiting…not holding onto the breath…finding the shallow end of the pool, gliding full body under the water…raising expectations while others wonder , slightly wandering , forgetting to remember is not an option while the day is so bright…finding fashion foolishly delightful, while taking ones shoes off …holy hours become …earth and flesh blown open , .birthing beyond time and space, then settling into the sunroom for hot peach tea and a tiny croissant…such a simple remedy while walking and waiting…
Beauty,
Donna Knutson
You see it. Everywhere you look people are staring at their flat things. We’re terrified of being bored. No one drifts or wonders. If Robert Frost had lived today he would have written, “Whose woods are these? I think I’ll Google it.”
– Paula Poundstone
Today I found myself empty
Empty of words
Empty of color
Empty of strength
Empty of empathy
Empty of ability
Empty of thoughts even.
I’ve been here many times
I understand it better now.
I rested a lot
Did minimal work,
Other than cleaning up and fixing meals,
I mainly stayed in bed,
listened to music,
and the silence.
I stayed in open, wordless, prayer –
Allowing the emptiness to be.
I have been giving my life force
to others,
to grief,
to walking in the dark,
the draining energy of great faith.
I have earned this emptiness.
I must allow myself to recharge.
I have nothing more to give.
The filling up of the emptiness
must be done carefully,
in prayer,
in silence.
Tomorrow is another day.
Baby steps. No worries.
The sun will shine again. Love awaits,
patient and kind.
💞
AL
💞
life: acoustic & amplified 