life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Freedom”

I want… 

  
But I don’t want comfort.

I want poetry.

I want danger.

I want goodness.

I want freedom.

🔥

   – Aldous Huxley

  
adventures don’t always lead to a good nights sleep,

I’ve found comfy beds are somewhat a rarity 

on the road less traveled. 

there’s an occasional soft, fluffy, sweet sinking into soft sheets,

hot water. 

and though they appreciate those amenities when they come,

pilgrims don’t get used to those things. 

the gifts of adventure are many and varied –

the very best of these gifts is

folks sharing themselves,

their food and drink,

their spare beds or sofas,

their conversation and hospitality,

their inmost parts vulnerable and open,

revealed completely

in the intimacy of how they live,

as, mostly unaware, they entertain angels. 

no matter how humble,

or uncomfortable, 

or even frightening and shocking at times,

we will find people living uniquely,

creating their own version of what works for them. 

every lifestyle carries learning and vast wisdom. 

receiving these amazing gifts of hospitality are one of life’s grandest joys and lessons. 

I have found it true,

there are many things more important than physical comfort. 

some of my most cherished memories,

the most generous gifts I have ever received,

include 

smelly,

stinky,

lumpy,

hard,

sleep-depriving 

surfaces 

on which sleep is just a whimsical wish. 

The blessing of adventure opens all the avenues of grace,

if we are willing to 

open our minds and hearts in new ways,

then continue to explore past our need to be comfortable. 

🔥

AL

  

layer upon layer

 

 
I was born out of love and with a purpose unknown to me then, but revealed to me one day at a time.

☀️

 Today by Walter Dunlevy

  
This world doesn’t improve by demanding perfection. It improves when we reach through our armor and touch another with tenderness. It improves when we bust through the walls of our conditioning, and try a new way of being on for size. It improves when we work through our unresolved shadow and share what little light we can find. It is the small, positive steps that we take when we are at war with ourselves that change the world.

☀️

   – Jeff Brown 

  

awe…
examination…
it keeps appearing…
again…
I delete…
again…
I delete…
haven’t I already written this poem?
haven’t I already done that one?
What is left that I haven’t taken out?
haven’t examined properly?
There are always layers…
As Shrek reminds me…
I am an onion…
layers…
illusions…
shadows…
truth left to excavate…
healing to be won…
motivations to uncover…
mystery to be discovered…
always more!
God keeps getting bigger…

and bigger…
as I examine…
reduce…
open…
help me to stay in this mode of self realization…
growth…
humble me…
my best self emerges within this process…
send it again…
remind me again…

💞

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

progress 

 

 In this long dark, logic and plain sight are useless. You navigate by the diffuse and reflective attention of the moon and stars. Bringing a deep, penetrating silence to the knowing that lives in your bones, stirs in your womb and emanates from your dreams, you recognize that you are no longer who you used to be and not yet still who you will become. You are both, you are neither, you are perfectly between things.

Even if distantly and dimly at first, abilities you never had during the day are coming alive. Where you used to seek leadership outside yourself, now yours is the deciding voice. Fear is becoming your strange ally, as you learn to honour and cradle its soft underbelly. Instinct and the mystical pull of your feeling leads the way. You can sense the density of objects around you, hear the songs of stones and know things are coming even before they’ve left.
For you, brave pilgrim, I hold this lantern at the crossroads. While others are anxious to see you arrive, I praise your vast withstanding of the uncertainty from which all meaning is born. 

❤️

– Love, Toko-pa 

http://www.toko-pa.com

 

And then there comes a moment

when all you have suffered

all you have learned

all you have lost and found

rise up and become 

and suddenly you are 

here

you are 

who you dreamed of being 

so many years ago

suddenly you have arrived

at what you caught glimpses of

for so many years 

and the search,

the free fall of broken dreams,

broken hearts

broken everything

tumbling down rabbit holes

stumbling over the feet 

of your own lack of knowledge

is over 

you find yourself on solid ground

stable

steady

raising your Ebenezer 

those tributes to God 

for all the mighty stones of help

building this foundation on the solid rocks 

you know so well 

and though the pilgrimage may continue

though the journey is definitely not over

though life is fragile

and security an illusion

there is a new sureness to your step

a trusting unshakable

a calm in it all 

a new assurance of provision

a new traveling song to be sung as you walk forward

always forward

always pilgrim ready for new adventures

forgetting the names of what lay behind

you press on to your calling

the prize set before

reveling in the mercies ever new

for each new day

there is no stopping now

you have found something

which cannot be taken

you have arrived here by your own determination

reached a place 

both spiritual and physical

a place of such magnitude 

the light shines from every angle

it has sealed up the oldest sores

bound up the deepest wounds

satisfied the deepest longings

changed everything 

settled old scores with finality 

no longer will you settle for less than you deserve

no more will you tolerate anything less than your best and highest offerings 

you must be all you can be 

gratitude fills you for this place 

a place so lovely 

it can bear up 

even under the weight 

of our hearts wildest desires 

with just this simple name

it resounds inside our souls like a bell –

    home

yes, beloved,

     you are home. 

right where you belong. 

🏡

AL

   

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

take a breath

  
In these times when anger

 Is turned into anxiety

 And someone has stolen

 The horizons and mountains,
Our small emperors on parade

 Never expect our indifference

 To disturb their nakedness. 
They keep their heads down

 And their eyes gleam with reflection

 From aluminum economic ground,
The media wraps everything 

 In a cellophane of sound,

 And the ghost surface of the virtual

 Overlays the breathing earth. 
The industry of distraction

 Makes us forget

 That we live in a universe. 
We have become converts

 To the religion of stress

 And its deity of progress;
That we may have courage

 To turn aside from it all

 And come to kneel down before the poor,

 To discover what we must do,

 How to turn anxiety

 Back into anger,

 How to find our way home. 

🏡

John O’Donohue 
‘For Citizenship’ from BENEDICTUS

  

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.         – Jean-Paul Sartre

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

full investigation…   

 

 Author Kent Crockett tells this classic story about his two year old son, Scott, who was sitting on the floor crying. Kent went into the room to investigate and he noticed a plastic baseball bat on the floor and asked his four year old daughter what happened. His little girl, Hannah, said, “He hit his head.” Kent said, “On what?” She pointed to the floor and said, “The bat.” Kent said, “Where was the bat?” She said, “In my hands.”
 

  

  

Where there is love

Where there is people

There is pain

Disappointment

Misunderstanding

Differences

Separation

Tears 

Imperfection

Where there is love

Where there is people

There is joy

Inspiration

Community

Understanding

Connection 

Life is about love

Life is about people

Embracing it all 

Feeling it all 

❤️💔❤️💔❤️💔❤️

AL

  
   
  

  

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

now just relax 

  
 

yup!  

  

everyday hero

  
Quote of the Day: Virtue 
Next to the seven deadly sins, the seven cardinal virtues are apt to look pale and unenterprising, but appearances are notoriously untrustworthy.
Prudence and temperance, taken separately, may not be apt to get you to your feet cheering, but when they go together, as they almost always do, that’s a different matter. The chain smoker or the junkie, for instance, who exemplifies both by managing to kick the habit, can very well have you throwing your hat in the air, especially if it happens to be somebody whom for personal reasons you’d like to have around a few years longer. And the courage involved isn’t likely to leave you cold either. Often it’s the habit kicker’s variety that seems the most courageous.
If you think of justice as sitting blindfolded with a scale in her hand, you may have to stifle a yawn, but if you think of a black judge acquitting a white racist of a false murder charge, it can give you gooseflesh.
The faith of a child taking your hand in the night is as moving as the faith of Mother Teresa among the untouchables, or Bernadette facing the skeptics at Lourdes, or Abraham, age seventy-five, packing up his bags for the Promised Land. And hope is the glimmer on the horizon that keeps faith plugging forward, of course, the wings that keep it more or less in the air.
Maybe it’s only love that turns things around and makes the seven deadly sins be the ones to look pale and unenterprising for a change. Greed, gluttony, lust, envy, and pride are no more than sad efforts to fill the empty place where love belongs, and anger and sloth just two things that may happen when you find that not even all seven of them at their deadliest ever can.

 ⚜

~ Frederick Bruechner originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words

 

   

 

  

photos found at http://www.pinterest.com 

perhaps 

 

 We talk about balance…
as if…

we can actually achieve such a thing

in this, 

the odd numbered trinity-teeter-tottered

kaleidoscope of a heart, soul and mind

living within the human pie crust 

we name skin!
It is our work

our great career –

to keep opening to the liquid mystery 

of living in this very moment. 

Free will choice,

our supreme gift –

our supreme curse. 
Oh, yes, 

we want things fixed. 

We want to know,

to define truth,

to arrive and settle,

to judge others through our personal lens,

to be right, of course. 
How do we live with the reality of ‘seeing in part’,

through a ‘dark veil’,

with just glimpses of the light in the night sky,

we fish in the darkness,

trying to catch one small piece of a star at a time,

just to have it burn out,

leaving us to go back and try again?
This is the life of the seekers, 

the mystics,

the warriors,

who have been seized with the firm belief –

that life matters. 

That love is the way to healing. 

That there is always more of God to be had. 

The mystery gets bigger with each illumination. 

The balance comes from allowing it all. 

Good. Bad. 

Joy. Sorrow. 

Sickness. Pain. 

Poverty. Wealth. 

Even the broken path,

the truth and the lies,

have eternal divine purpose. 

Our task to 

learn,

open,

love,

trust,

forgive,

heal,

move,

sing,

dance,

create,

keep letting go,

keep changing,

be present,

through it all. 
We dream the large dreams of living into our best selves. 

We focus intently on each small task before us. 

We think,

We listen,

We give,

We receive. 

We speak, when necessary. 

We walk daily in vigilance. 

Letting the legacy of each day stand on it’s own. 

We live knowing our next choice is always our most important….

and so it goes

and so it goes

🌀

AL

   


Sometimes you have to leave 

what you think you know

behind.

No one ever really wants to do this.

Knowing things

can be very comforting.

All day, soul whispers

what I need to know.

I don’t hear her

until I lay aside

cherished beliefs and assumptions

until I dare to be with the not-knowing.

And then. . . . 

Well, that’s the risky part, isn’t it?

There is no telling 

what living an ensouled life

might ask of us.
~Oriah “Mountain Dreamer” House
So this is where I am in writing the book, “The Choice,” -on the great plain of not knowing, offering myself- pen in hand- anyway. Each day, the darkness yields to the light, and words hit the page, surprising me. This is what it’s like: the light coming again and again, the darkness making the illumination breath-taking.

  
 

   

  
 

find photos at http://www.pinterest.com
 

don’t try too hard

 

 God just likes making things.  
He doesn’t try too hard. Comfortable. 

No particular message in mind –

Bugs, 

Flowers,

Birds, 

Stones,

Trees,

those beauties with leaves and sap.  

Shells of all sorts, 

revealing the sound of the ocean – 

even in the middle of the desert. 

He never runs out of fresh ideas,

new angles, 

dazzling variations of old themes.  

He makes masterpieces, 

out of scavenged and wasted things.  

Beauty within ashes and scars. 

Gardens and vegetables from rotted orange rinds and other scraps.  

Jewels from lumps of coal. 

Our creativity, at least in part, 

comes from resting in,

spending time with,

opening from within. 

Prayer as emptiness. 

Prayer as silence.  

Prayer as stillness.  

Prayer as rest. 

Prayer as opening. 

Prayer without wanting or asking. 

Prayer as presence. 

Then,

sometimes, 

God, 

the muse,

shows up,

hangs out on the sofa,

and our hearts begin to sing,

and we simply just can’t help making things ourselves…

💞

AL

(based on the book: the holy wild by Mark Buchanan) 

 

  

 After the glut of sparkle and sentiment,
all that heavy gold and glory,

it’s kind of a relief to return 

to an orderly house, a clean mantle,

a blue and white shirt, the regular dishes.
The world is plain, snow is crusted, 

trees more bare than in November.

The marsh like the underside of a carpet,

the cattails bland and spent.

The asphalt road has nothing to say,

the gray sky shrugs and says, “Ditto.”
God stands there, 

hands in the pockets of a drab jacket,

gazing at the brook’s blank of ice,

says, “Yeah, I like to hang out here.

It’s relaxing. Clears my head.”
I come home to a quiet house,

refrigerator humming. This too is holy.

I sit on the couch, gaze out at the yard.

“Huh,” I say. “What do you know?

Pockets.” 
__________________ 

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

 

   

 

New Years Eve Countdown 

 

   

I have lived restricted 

for so many years 

the days they vanish 

the years disappear 

One day I feel 

from the ocean a breeze 

It warms my inside 

and melts my ice 

There are doors forgotten 

that lead somewhere 

though I never dared 

believe they existed

Restricted Living by Kjell Walfridsson

 

    
   

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