Didn’t write a poem today.
October 23rd,
heavy with autumn’s first cold,
numbing despite British tea.
Words played movie-like
across my screen,
pictures just out of focus
in that maddening way:
the smell of marble swirling,
the feel of air, not quite ripe.
I didn’t write a poem today.
Did I?
by Anni Macht Gibson
Unfinished and other poems
and if you want everything you must experience
knowing what it is to have nothing but your heart
– cliff kayser
www.XperienceIT.com
www.KayserRidge.com
Your mere presence has always been enough for the birds to sing, the waves to roll, and the sun to shine… so why do you ever feel you should be more?
Love yourself as we love you,
The Universe
Notes From the Universe
http://www.tut.com
God invites us into the present moment, invites us to be present for God, who is perfectly present for us. Start now. Come as you are. No cover charge, no entrance requirements, no dress code. Just be here. Really, you already are.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
– Ephesians 4:32
Forgiveness. It’s not an easy word for many of us. Ok, I don’t really know about others, but I know my own stubborn self and how hard it is for me to forgive, and then, rest in my forgiveness. I work through painful, difficult issues, I let go, and I think I have won the battle, but all the sudden I round a corner and, it seems, outta no-where, BAM – there it is again, and I realize I haven’t quite reached as far into that forgiveness force field as I had intended to go, and so I start again. I am so glad that I re
alize that life, and this forgiveness thing, is a process, and that I have made progress, and so that encourages me to work through it again…and again…and…!
One day I think I fine, and then the next, unexpectedly, I can plunge down hard – just by driving past a house, having a conversation, getting a glimpse of a something, hearing a song, or melling a familiar smell. I filled with pain, loss, anger, sadness, grief, regret and longing. I get overloaded with these feelings today, additionally I have can also experince anxiety, exhaustion, overwhelm and the battle with the demons inside my head which say things like, ‘I can’t sing, am ugly, fat and undesirable, and I’m just too stupid, vain and like attention too much to know it. That everything that has ever gone wrong in my life is because of me, and that I will never find anyone who can stand being with me because I am weird and unloveable.’
All of this is mixed up and complicated in my head and I have to sort it all out and begin to let go of one layer at a time, as I work to identify the lies and change the story. Then I work at forgiveness, first for myself, others, and the ‘house’ in question. It’s not easy, and I many times, and hours, I just pray, with Anne Lamont, “help me, help me, help me” until the pain eases and I can move forward in a measure of peace.
Like a baby learning to walk, each time I get up from being ‘stuck’, I gain ground, I get a little farther, a little stronger on my feet, and I pray that some day I will have arrived at the goal and will run freely in the yard of freedom! I want to live in the Land of the Free and Forgiven, and in order to do so I know I must let go of any resentment and anger I am still holding to and just breathe love. Just breathe. Just love. I know I am loved and forgiven and so I am called to forgive. I try very hard to be easy on myself, because I realize I will probably be in heaven when that finally occurs completely, and that’s ok! I will run through the golden streets with children and puppies at my heels yelling, ‘wooo hooo! Thank you!!!! I have learned the way of forgiveness!’ Until then I continue to hold myself accountable and keep doing the work!
New issue of the newsletter on this subject of Forgiveness at www.songsfromthevalley.com
All the greatest things you have done,
with those of all the masters,
are little purple berries
on the end of bare branches
that songbirds come and eat
and then migrate far,
strong and beautiful.
•
All the mistakes you ever made
fall like leaves and rot
in God’s good dark earth
until, after time and regret
and a winter of letting go,
it all becomes rich, black soil.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
Nov 12
This is a time of abundance in your life. Your cup runneth over with blessings. After plodding uphill for several weeks, you are now traipsing through lush meadows drenched in warm sunshine. I want you to enjoy to the full this time of ease and refreshment. I delight in providing it for you.
Sometimes my children hesitate to receive My good gifts with open hands. Feelings of false guilt creep in, telling them they don’t deserve to be so richly blessed. This is nonsense – thinking, because no one deserves anything from Me. My kingdom is not about earning and deserving; it’s about believing and receiving.
When a child of Mine balks at accepting My gifts, I am deeply grieved. When you receive My abundant blessings with a grateful heart, I rejoice. My pleasure in giving and your pleasure in receiving flow together in joyous harmony.
Psalm 23:5; John 3:16; Luke 11:9-10; Romans 8:32
Jesus Calling: enjoying peace in His presence
Sarah Young
Wanderer, your footsteps are
The road, and nothing more;
Wanderer, there is no road,
The road is made by walking.
By walking one makes the road.
And upon glancing behind
One see the path
That will never be trod again.
Wanderer, there is no road,
Only wakes upon the sea.
– Antonio Machado
The Traveler
Quoted in Standing at Water’s Edge by Anne Paris
All summer, the chlorophyll of the leaf, all that green, absorbs the sun and releases food and it this cycle of chlorophyll that cloaks the leaves’ pure colors.
Shalom kneels under the pear tree, picks herself a yellow leaf, gold for a pocket.
I finger the edge of a scarlet one.
“But come the fall of the year, come November — the chlorophyll ebbs. And the green dims.”
Shalom holds up an ember leaf.
“And there it is — the leaf’s true colors!”
Shalom whispers, bowed over her gilded leaf — “You mean this leaf was always this colour?”
And I nod.
All this brilliance, all this God glory — it is always here.
But life can blind and truth can hide in plain sight and the ways of God burn underneath everything.
Life has blinding cycles of its own — but our God is always blazing glory.
And when you whisper thanks to God — you glimpse the glory of God and pure grace colors your world.
And I pick up a pen to thank through the fall days.
And the dark ebbs and the shadows dim –
and all the trees and the thankful ignite with the true colours of the glorious now.
A Holy Experience
http://www.aholyexperience.com/
One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward
growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be
overcome again and again.
– Abraham Maslow
life: acoustic & amplified 