Gratitude | life: acoustic & amplified

Archive for the category “Gratitude”

10 Aug 2016

I invite everyone to choose forgiveness rather than division, teamwork over personal ambition.- Jean-Francois Cope

We never know who we are

( this is strange , isn’t it?)
or what vows we made

or who we knew
or what we hoped for

or where we were
when the world’s dreams

were seeded.
Until the day just one of us

sighs a gentle longing

and we all feel the change.
One of us calls a name

and we all know to be there.
One of us tells a dream

and we all breathe life into it.
One of us asks “why?”

and we all know the answer.
It is very strange

We never know who we are.

🤔🙄😶😏🤗😜😍🤓😖😋😊

We never know who we are by Margaret Wheatley

I’m not perfect

Far far from it

Im so far from perfect

It’s really not necessary

for me to make that announcement
You’re not perfect either

I’m not holding either

Of us to that standard

That comes with way to high

A price to pay
I’m human

So are you

no real surprise

I embrace our humanity

And the delicate balance

Of our chemistry of imperfection

Wrapped in choices
Choices move us in one direction

or another

In one direction is the path

which brings peace love joy

connection

life

Blossoming, flowering with joy
The other path is where lives

greed lust ego

emptiness that destroys peace

isolation

death

Stealing the joy from our living
Our very humanity

The quality of our living

hangs in the balance of our choices

The choices are never completely one direction,

we roam the depths of both paths,

always becoming more,

discovering,

uncovering,

new pieces of ourselves.
It’s all important,

it’s also important to know, for sure, what we want our lives to be about,

in order not to end up stuck in a life we don’t want.
Each of us have free will

Each of us are responsible only for our own lives.

I made my choice to continue moving towards the light,

imperfectly but steadily,

years ago

🔥

Amy Lloyd (AL)

My birds arrive from tropics

and glaciers I can’t imagine.
My river sparkles into a distance

I’ve never seen.
Some days the volcano trembles

and all I can do is wonder.
When my Beloved finds wild animals in me

should I be alarmed or merely startled?
I thought I understood, looked

in the mirror enough to recognize me,
but now you have re-created me entirely

and I must start over. Again.

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

Posted in action, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, commitment, connection, courage, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, grace, Gratitude, Letting Go, Love, mystery, nature, People | Leave a comment

29 Jul 2016

rest in the miracle that has always already happened! – Fred LaMotte

When the world does not conform

to the story in my head

I get a feeling that

“something’s not right.”

Why is the story in my head

not down-loading properly?
Why do I sense that the world

needs to be fixed

and I must repair what is “wrong”

by imposing my story

onto the mystery

of the ineluctable?
Yet the world is not a problem.

The problem is

there’s a story in my head
but it’s not quite the same

as your story, is it?
And so there is conflict,

there is suffering,

even if our stories are about

salvation, about justice

and equality, the perfect

marriage, the cleanest

environment, or gaining

enlightenment…
Happiness cannot arise

if we slather the world in the thin

veneer of our narration.

Happiness is the dance

of atoms ordered by

the dynamics of chaos

in the heart of the now

when we let both story

and teller disperse

like a fine mist,
when we let things clarify

all by themselves

the way silt filters and falls

through a mountain brook

in liquid transparency.
Now rest in the miracle

that has always

already happened.

Just shut up and see.

A rain cloud vanishes.

There are crystal drops on

blades of grass, each containing

the sun.
💫

SOMETHING’S NOT QUITE RIGHT by Alfred LaMotte

Let us go forward quietly, forever making for the light…

Vincent Van Gogh

these anniversaries

the marking of dates

building Ebenezer memorials

from the stones of help

bringing me to this place

tasting again

the bitter herbs

the roasted lamb

the flat bread

the milk and honey flowing over everything

the fresh dates and figs

of now

sitting with this

bitter-sweet

sweet-bitter

this life

this love

this past

this practice

this present

this grateful

that gratitude

that changing

this constant

this birth

this death

this resurrection

always this love

ah this love

just.

this.

love.

always the path of thanks

always the gifts presenting

along the diamond road

this is my tradition

my version of holiday

each one

my best of days

my worst of days

feeling it wrapping around my senses

these memories clouds

wrapping around me

enveloped from behind me

me always facing forward

always facing toward the rising moment just ahead

the path before me the most important

always remembering,

along with that other Southern Belle…

tomorrow is another day…

the best is always yet to be!

🗓

AL 7/23/16 gratitude/tradition

Life

truly

is beauty

beauty

salted

by rare moments

of exquisite suffering.
Life

truly

is suffering

suffering

peppered

by rare moments

of exquisite beauty.

🌹

https://www.claudiuskeepsakes.com/collections/frontpage/products/duality-of-life-mug

there’s this summer song

of cool wind on my skin,

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
💞

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.

– Frederick Buechner

The Final Beast

Then I walked

straight forward

out of the gate,

through the wood,

along the river,

toward the mountain
and I thought of the future

I could make in the world

if I walked toward it

like this,

with my face toward the hills

and my eyes full of light

and the earth sure

and solid beneath me,

walking

with a fierce anticipation,

and a faithful expectation,

with the sun and the rain

and the wind on my skin

and that old sense…

of many paths

breaking from one path.
So learning to walk

in morning light

like this again,

we’ll take our first

light step

toward mortality,

walking

out of the garden,

through the woods,

along the river,

toward the mountain,

its simple,

that’s what we’ll do,

practicing as we go

and

we’ll be glimpsed,

traveling westward,

no longer familiar,

a following wave,

greeted, as we were at our birth,

as probable

and slightly

dangerous strangers,

someone

coming into view,

someone about

to find out.
Some wild

and improbable risk

about to break

on the world again.
..
David Whyte

Adapted from LEARNING TO WALK

From RIVER FLOW:

New and Selected Poems

Posted in action, Adventure, art, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, connection, determination, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, giving, Glory, grace, Gratitude, healing, inspiration, Letting Go, Life, Love, moment, mystery, perceptions, Poetry | Leave a comment

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

24 Jul 2016

soul feelings

He Played Three Violin Parts At Once, The Result Is A Spine-Tingling Version Of ‘Hallelujah’ You’ll Never Forget.

Music has been used for a variety of purposes, but many uses have been forgotten and lost. Work chants were used with sailors, field workers, slaves and soldiers to increase their productivity. Musical rhythms created patterns of organization and control movement – for an activity such as rowing a boat. It created unity and cooperation among workers. The musical rhythm set a work pace. It also helped people focus on the music and not the hard, and arduous work.
Some songs give people identity, like “our” song, and songs for a sports team or a group or nation. Jingles can persuade people to accept a certain point of view. Jingles are used extensively in China to promote political points of view and in advertising to encourage people to buy a product.
When ancient conquerors came into a new land, they quickly outlawed local music – as their music strengthened identity in a culture and its old ways. The Russians did this in Finland during World War II, outlawing the music, Finlandia, as it gave the local people courage and strength. Music has more power than we give it credit for.
Special uplifting music can change a person’s outlook, creating a window to heaven – a new way of feeling and thinking. Ancient people referred to music that altered and uplifted a person’s conscious as the “music of the spheres.”
Author Viola Pettit Neal, wrote about a novel use of music, “The conquest of evil will ultimately be accomplished by use of rituals of sound and form. For evil is that which is disharmonious and cannot exist in harmonious pattern of sound and form. The word ‘ritual’ in its true definition is an orderly movement of sound and geometrical form in sequential patterns.”[1] Neal suggests that harmonious music can overcome disharmony (evil). Many African tribes surround someone who has behaved badly, singing their name and song to them – reestablishing harmony. It makes sense that Osama bin Laden outlawed music for his followers. Guess it would be hard to prepare for a suicide bombing mission, when you were humming a breezy Beach Boys tune. Such harmony would make it near impossible to get people do heinous deeds.
Could we use music to change people that have done unscrupulous things? Why not use harmonic and healing music: In prisons, with children in trouble or business with poor reputations? Where negotiations are taking place? What about on a war front? How serious could people be about fighting, when everyone was singing Silent Night?
Research has shown that people easily believe others in a distant country are enemies – if they don’t know them. In contrast, if they know the people, they don’t want them to be hurt. What about sharing songs from countries to lesson international tension? If people like a country’s music, it will be harder to demonize their people – as the enemy. For example, racism against black people declined in the end of the last century, when young people loved black rap music.
The people of Estonia, a small Romanian country, had been slaves for thousands of years. As slaves, they were demoralized. When the abusive Czars were shot, the Estonians saw their chance for freedom, but had no courage to seize the opportunity. In a country of only a million people, half of them sang nonstop for a week. The energy created from singing – realigned their “will,” determination and spirit. They rose up and boldly gained their freedom.
Shortly after Hitler took control of Poland, Russia overpowered the Romanian countries. Under Stalin’s rule about a third of Estonians were randomly forced to work in Siberia. Most died. This practice terrorized the people. Later, Hitler as well as the Russians, enslaved Estonian men and forced them to fight against each other, with brothers killing brothers. Pain colored the Estonians with fear, shame, and horror; once again, breaking the spirit of the people.
After World War II, the Russian occupation created harsh conditions, little food, no jobs, no places to live, but plenty of fear. When the communist regime fell, the Estonian people found themselves again beaten down with no strength to gain their freedom.
Once again, the Estonian people came together with a song-festival for five days, with a half of million people attending. Afterwards, the Estonia people gained their freedom, crediting their courage to the energy created by singing. To this day the Estonian people hold a song-festival every five years.
Sound and music is chock full of hidden energy. Music is invisible, but its powers are greater than we ever dreamed of.
[1] Viola Pettit Neal, Through the Curtain, 1962.

Jill Mattson

jill@jillshealingmusic.com

I love you wild –

like oceans, volcanoes, tsunamis and bees

I love you natural –

like seasons, rainbows, and falling leaves

I love you large –

like Grand Canyon’s,

the mountains and sky

I love you small –

like the atom, lady bugs, birds flying high

I love you tender –

like mamas with babies,

and soft, falling rain

I love you strong –

like soldiers with orders,

and wind on the plains

I love you like every cliche ever written

I love you with words that can never be spoken

I love you in mystery I can’t understand

when hearing your voice

or seeing your hands

I love you deeper than knowledge

and wider than life

You fill me with beauty,

I am music,

yes, music

you are my life

🎼

photo sources at pinterest.com

Posted in art, attitude, beauty, beloved, Change, Choice, connection, find art at pinterest, grace, Gratitude, inspiration, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, music, mystery | Leave a comment

23 Jul 2016

what not to say…just bring french chocolates

“Only he who cries… is permitted to sing…” is what Bonhoeffer said.

Only those authentic enough to lament, are authentic enough to love.
When everything is stripped away and you have nothing left and in all your bare vulnerability, there is communion with God.

– Ann Voskamp

I am bare naked

Down to my bones

Even my comfortable skin is gone

I shiver as the cold blows through me

I have cried many tears

my song has been well watered

it blooms within me

true voice does not come without cost

Yet it comes

I choose

I let go

I choose

I lament

I chose

I grieve

I choose

I love

I choose

I commune

I choose

I learn

I choose

always choosing

new choosing in every moment

to continue to make the choices

which will bring the song

that fills the whole world

with hope, light and love

Thanks be

to the the friends who stay with me

in silence we weep

in joy we laugh

always and always

we sing

🎼

love breaks your heart for the sake of your heart…

If you have your health, you have everything

is something that’s said to cheer you up

when you come home early and find your lover

arched over a stranger in a scarlet thong.

Or it could be you lose your job at Happy Nails

because you can’t stop smudging the stars

on those ten teeny American flags.

I don’t begrudge you your extravagant vitality.

May it blossom like a cherry tree. May the petals

of your cardiovascular excellence

and the accordion polka of your lungs

sweeten the mornings of your loneliness.

But for the ill, for you with nerves that fire

like a rusted-out burner on an old barbecue,

with bones brittle as spun sugar,

with a migraine hammering like a blacksmith

in the flaming forge of your skull,

may you be spared from friends who say,

God doesn’t give you more than you can handle

and ask what gifts being sick has brought you.

May they just keep their mouths shut

and give you French chocolates and daffodils

and maybe a small, original Matisse,

say, Open Window, Collioure, so you can look out

at the boats floating on the dappled pink water.

🏝

French Chocolates by Ellen Bass

The Beloved says:

Be at peace;

I am the strongest thing in you.

Over your dark, formless waters I brood;

in your void I speak my Word.

You are my river and I am your flowing;

you are my water and I am your sea.

I am the spark from nerve to nerve;

the drumming of your heart.

I am your blood’s dark alchemy

creating life, this moment, life.

In the night I am your nest;

in the storm, your steadfast earth.

In the raging waters I am your breath;

in your death I am your life.

I am the First thing in you,

and I will be in you

when the rest of you is gone.

When your bones are shadows

and your sinews wind

a hundred years from now

I will still be in your place,

rejoicing.

Nothing is deeper than my desire for you;

nor stronger than your belonging in me.

I am your Realm, and your power, and your glory.

Be at peace.
__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

4 year anniversary of living faith following the cloud. Allowing God to direct every step I have taken…been an amazing, wonderful, difficult, miracle-strewn time. So grateful for every miracle minute.

Big changes seem to be coming. Walk with me. Pray for me. 🙏🏻 So grateful for you.

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, big, Change, Choice, courage, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, friendship, Gratitude, Grieving, healing, home, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, Peace, People, Relationships, risk, soul and spirit, transformation, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

22 Jul 2016

blank space

Today I find myself empty

Empty of words

Empty of color

Empty of strength

Empty of grief

Empty of empathy

Empty of ability

Empty of thoughts even

I’ve been here many times

I understand it better now

I will allow

I will rest

rest from thought

rest from guilt

rest from wanting

rest from expecting

rest from having to

rest from desire

I rest in my truth

rest in faith

rest in trust

rest in love

rest in what I believe

rest in what I have experienced

I will just be

stay open

stay present

stay here now

in wordless prayer –

Allowing the emptiness to be

Today I am empty

and it is

well with my soul.

💭

Writing about empty mind is not easy.

When I have got it, there are no words.

When the words come, it goes away.
Sitting in anger and fear,

Mind is full of the past and future.

Images of catastrophes big and small

Jostle for a seat at the brain.

Resentment, incredulity and disappointment

Slide their way into heart spaces

Pushing out loving-kindness.

Equanimity lies in pieces.
Some of us scrape up that slimy

Emotional stuff and put it in jars

To carry along with us,

And then we complain that

Our load is too heavy.

We need to put down that

Lumpy sack of ooze

And take a breath.
The sage said,

“I pack no provisions for my long journey—

Entering emptiness under the midnight moon.”

He did not pack his ego,

Or his remembrance of self.

He carried no big plans

Or regrets of the past.

Like a wise fool he may have

Even forgotten to leave.

While he sits still in darkness,

The moon travels the sky.

🗯

Empty Mind by Tom Barrett

I have a small vial of clay

that used to hold my father’s ashes.

They’re on a hillside in Montana now;

the vial is clean and empty,

ready for me.
I should keep it in my pocket,

hold it deep in the folds of my coat,

until I am folded into my little vial of clay.
It asks me, what is the difference

between you and clay?

The answer is water.

That, and love.
The little vial of clay says daily:

drink water while you can,

and love.

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

There is a community of the spirit.

Join it, and feel the delight

of walking in the noisy street

and being the noise.
Drink all your passion,

and be a disgrace.
Close both eyes

to see with the other eye.
Open your hands,

if you want to be held.
Sit down in this circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel

the shepherd’s love filling you.
At night, your beloved wanders.

Don’t accept consolations.
Close your mouth against food.

Taste the lover’s mouth in yours.
You moan, “She left me.” “He left me.”

Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying.

Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison

when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.

Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always

widening rings of being.

🎴

A Community of the Spirit by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.
– Rumi

Posted in Alone, attitude, awareness, be, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Choice, connection, courage, emotions, Freedom, Gratitude, Grieving, healing, Letting Go, Love, mystery, Patience, Peace, Poetry, quiet, risk, soul and spirit, strength, transformation, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | 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

17 Jul 2016

breaking the mold…feelin’ dangerously cheesy

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. – Chesterton

In the pantry the dear dense cheeses, Cheddars and harsh

Lancashires; Gorgonzola with its magnanimous manner;

the clipped speech of Roquefort; and a head of Stilton

that speaks in a sensuous riddling tongue like Druids.

O cheeses of gravity, cheeses of wistfulness, cheeses

that weep continually because they know they will die.

O cheeses of victory, cheeses wise in defeat, cheeses

fat as a cushion, lolling in bed until noon.

Liederkranz ebullient, jumping like a small dog, noisy;

Pont l’Évêque intellectual, and quite well informed; Emmentaler

decent and loyal, a little deaf in the right ear;

and Brie the revealing experience, instantaneous and profound.

O cheeses that dance in the moonlight, cheeses

that mingle with sausages, cheeses of Stonehenge.

O cheeses that are shy, that linger in the doorway,

eyes looking down, cheeses spectacular as fireworks.

Reblochon openly sexual; Caerphilly like pine trees, small

at the timberline; Port du Salut in love;

Caprice des Dieux eloquent, tactful, like a thousand-year-old hostess;

and Dolcelatte, always generous to a fault.

O village of cheeses, I make you this poem of cheeses,

O family of cheeses, living together in pantries,

O cheeses that keep to your own nature, like a lucky couple,

this solitude, this energy, these bodies slowly dying.
🧀

O Cheese by Donald Hall

why is it so hard to see you get in that line?

the one where you wait to fly away…

my heart is so full of you.

I’m so very grateful for you,

for these days,

full and joyful.

Over way too fast.

There’s so much more to do,

too share,

talk about,

explore.

You,

so handsome,

funny,

brave,

smart

and practical.

Always thinking,

finding yourself,

ready for more,

standing so tall

with your quick smile,

and quick frown.

I think about you little,

eating cheese off your bed –

you were always a wild animal,

always manufacturing a tail from some found source.

You were always so much more than that –

you were always art,

always real life,

always finding God in the clouds,

always quick to find the silly,

my beautiful son.

I laugh through my tears

at the sheer gift of you.

I love you pure,

to the deepest depths of myself.

I can’t possibly comprehend it,

but I know, somehow,

God loves you even more than I do.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Let go…

Fly free, be well, live full, and come back soon –

my only prayers

👦🏼

AL/Mom

When the news came in over the phone

that you did not have cancer, as they first thought.

I was in the kitchen trying to follow a recipe,

glancing from cookbook to stove,

shifting my glasses from my nose to my forehead and back,

a recipe, as it turned out, for ratatouille,

a complicated vegetable dish

which you or any other dog would turn up your nose at.

If you had been here, I imagine

you would have been curled up by the door

sleeping with your head resting on your tail.

And after I learned that you were not sick,

everything took on a different look

and appeared to be better than it usually is.

For example (and that’s the first and last time

I will ever use those words in a poem),

I decided I should grate some cheese,

not even knowing if it was right for ratatouille,

and the sight of the cheese grater

with its red handle lying in the drawer

with all the other utensils made me marvel

at how this thing was so perfectly able and ready

to grate cheese just as you with your long smile

and your brown and white coat

are perfectly designed to be the dog you perfectly are.
🧀

Good News by Billy Collins

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

Posted in attitude, awareness, emotions, find art at pinterest, fun, Gratitude, Letting Go, Love, Poetry, Quotes | 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

life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Gratitude”

I invite everyone to choose forgiveness rather than division, teamwork over personal ambition.- Jean-Francois Cope

rest in the miracle that has always already happened! – Fred LaMotte

quest for that shade of blue

soul feelings

what not to say…just bring french chocolates

blank space

mirror mirror

threads that won’t break

breaking the mold…feelin’ dangerously cheesy

how far will you go?

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Meta

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Gratitude”

Post Navigation

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Meta