life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Gratitude”

ready? clean. close. begin.  

 

 CLOSING 2015
One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.

Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.
Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?

You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened.
You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that.

But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister.

Everyone is finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.
Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.
That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home.
Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts – and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.

Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them.
Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.

Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood.
Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.
Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.”
Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back.

Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person – nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need.

This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.
Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life.
Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust.
Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

🎭

Paulo Coelho

 

The devil loves unspoken secrets, especially those that fester in a man’s soul. 

       – Melville

 

  the path keeps winding
I keep walking

always into surprises

always into adventures

today an unexpected ‘wow’ on the path

love always wins

grace always changes us

I keep seeing it

as I practice this truth named love

as I let go into the the flow

as I clear out the old

leave

return

let go

keep letting go

making space for now

the work of living in now

this freedom thing is a worthwhile challenge 

this mystery just keeps expanding

this love thing is truly

the only thing

that could possibly 

change this world….

or anyone…

mainly..

namely.

someone 

like 

me. 

begin again

trust the new beginning. 

🌎

AL

 

the beds we make: predicted 

 

how much of our lives do we predict through our words

which come from our thoughts 

our actions following that form 

belief systems so deep seeded are seated 

within us deeper than deep

most times we do things 

from an unconscious place

of familial familiarity 

patterns so old

we can trace them into generations past passing

the torturous torch

ever forward 

how do we stop this bitter flower flowering?

how do we dam the damning history if our history?

remember to remember 

thoughts become things

words are power

actions speak louder than shouting 

we can do hard things

we get to choose

that’s what free will is all about

all we need is love

love wins every time

put that truth in your peace pipe and smoke it!

I’ll take all that into all the upcoming 

brand spanking, 

sparkling 

new years 

year after year –

I choose a life of love

🍾

AL  

 So, you get to choose – are you going to suffer, or be happy for the next seven years? 
I’m going to suffer. 

  

  
HEALING: is moving forward even when nothing is working out, and understanding that one day, it will all work together to create an even better today than yesterday. 

   – Soul Pancake 

be the manger

 

 My Word is made flesh.
This is how I live.

I am born not once long ago, 

but each moment, always.
Will you be my flesh?

Having none of my own,

can I put you on and wear you 

into the world? 

Will you be born for me?
Walk in the woods for me, will you?

Touch what you can touch for me,

touch with gentle fingers.

Listen for me. Hear so that I may hear.

Smell pine and sage, babies and cities.

Smell for me.
Look with my eyes.

See what I long to see,

one thing at a time.
Be with the lonely for me, will you?

Stay close to the suffering,

dance with the joyful, dance

as only a body can dance.

Let your heart be broken,

as only a beating one can. 

Reach out to the despised,

notice the beauty.

Dare to be a child in a rough world.

This is how I come.
You are my flesh now, dear one.

Bear me into this world

and I will always be in you

and in all you meet.

Have an eye for those who don’t know this;

see it in them even when they can’t.
Let me discover

what it is to come to myself

in my own Creation. 

Look— even now

I am coming close,

seeking the manger.

Even now I enter.
__________________ 

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

 

 On the streets of anywhere lives a man.

The same man.
Homeless and alone in the world.
The tears that fill his eyes go by silent, and unnoticed.
Tears that cry out for a simple glimpse of the certainty that he’s a brother to us all.
That he belongs.
But you and I dare not look. Lest we catch such a glimpse.
A glimpse that might show us the frailty of our own humanity.
A glimpse that might admit that we are, and always have been, more than brothers.

   – Nic Askew

  

each piece 

  
I am struck by the otherness of things rather than their sameness. 

The way a tiny pile of snow perches in the crook of a branch in the

tall pine, away by itself, high enough not to be noticed by people, 

out of reach of stray dogs. It leans against the scaly pine bark, busy

at some existence that does not need me. 
It is the differences of objects that I love, that lift me toward the rest

of the universe, that amaze me. That each thing on earth has its own

soul, its own life, that each tree, each clod is filled with the mud of

its own star. I watch where I step and see that the fallen leaf, old

broken grass, an icy stone are placed in exactly the right spot on the

earth, carefully, royalty in their own country

❄️
Looking for the Differences by Tom Hennen

❄️

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

   
    
    
    
    
    

photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT 

❄️

O come thou Mystery,

unseen, unbidden, unfelt,

but so madly needed here.
Come to us 

who push you away with our despair,

snare us with wonder.
Come to us, the lonely and broken,

O Small One,

not to solve but to be with.
Come to us who grieve 

place or worth or hope,

and find it with us.
Come to us in our smugness

and lay yourself down in the manger

of our secret wounds.
Come to us in our privilege

and let us hang our lives

on a poor little peasant child. 
Come to us in our violent fear

and calm us with your tiny voice.

Ask us to love you. 
For us who find it hard to love each other,

come and gather us in a circle,

have us care, have us sing. 
Come to us, too afraid to need, 

be fragile among us, 

and let us fall in love.
Neglect our neglect, Emmanuel,

come and be a tiny flame of love among us,

and light our own.
__________________ 

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

   

prep work

 

    
  

   

   

   

   

Ready. Set. Go.  

gift

 

 Longest night.

Darkness falls like snow,

falls and falls, 

deepening.

Older than the universe,

here before it,

and will be after.

Wraps an arm around us

as if we’re old friends.

We are.

Darkness lives in us,

radiates from us.

We speak it.

Darkness is the velvet cloth

where you cherish the gem

of your presence among us,

darkness the womb,

darkness the manger

that cradles your light,

this holy being

that becomes us,

births us.

In the darkness

you do not come to us,

we come from you.

Because you are with and not apart,

even the darkness

is you.

Because you shine in it

the dark is our dark,

none of it unchanged.

Your being our light,

your hereness our life,

shining in the longest night.

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

 

 To go into the darkness with a light 
is to know the light. 

To know the dark, go dark. 

Go without light and find that the dark too, blooms and sings 

and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings. 

– Wendell Berry 

  
Black. out. black. 

Black. on. black. 

Dark. on dark. on dark. 

I was simply looking for home. 

Not knowing the current alley would lead 

to where the sidewalk ended 

I stepped off the edge 

out of the world of light 

waking into morning night 

a banished sun 

no stars 

or moon 

or streetlights 

or fireflies 

or lighters 

in pitch darkness 

I lay, unable to move, 

senses adjusting 

to what is my new reality 

hearing the life 

that lives here 

wondering if I’ll make friends 

while I’m here 

learning this new space. 

🌌

AL

 

 Gift suggestions: 
To your enemy –  forgiveness. 

 To an opponent – tolerance. 

   To a friend – your heart. 

     To a customer – service. 

       To every child – a good example. 

          To all – love. 

💞

           – Oren Arnold

  

finding center

 

 I think that I shall never see 
A poem lovely as a tree. 
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest 

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast; 
A tree that looks at God all day, 

And lifts her leafy arms to pray; 
A tree that may in Summer wear 

A nest of robins in her hair; 
Upon whose bosom snow has lain; 

Who intimately lives with rain. 
Poems are made by fools like me, 

But only God can make a tree.

🎄

Trees by Joyce Kilmer

   
photo by Jen Lemen

🌳

 The simplest things in life 

Are the most extraordinary 

Let them reveal themselves. 

– Paulo Coelho 

🌲

There is magic in every little thing. 

Your very breath is magic 

You, showing up on this tiny planet, 

at this very time in history. 

The way the sun glints off your hair. 

The way the trees recognize you. 

The way a child can turn their head 

and plunge you into grief. 

it’s all about perspective. 

Einstein reminds us 

We have a choice in how we live. 

One of two ways – 

As if nothing –

OR

As if everything –

Is miraculous. 

I’m so glad I choose to see the enchanted pathway. 

It’s always a fine day here. 

No matter what circumstance I find myself in. 

Magic abounds.  

🌳

AL

  

simply still

 

   


   

     
 

   

   
   
 In the sixth month already

of the impossible

Gabriel, 

so usually unseeable—

startling, 

though you thought him so foreign,

how nearer than you

to the seed of your life—

fills the room with his wings,

wraps with his words

this world 

beside God’s so small,

sets it in the greater one

among stars 

and you 

lit by the same light,

and calls forth your trust in heaven’s actual, 
—

for with God nothing is impossible—

the divine within, 

inviting your invitation

from even deeper in,

a Word, 

a world entrusted to you,

your being 

that by gift and labor blesses,

brought with singing

through the portal of this blood of birth

and that crucial other,

calling to life

in your drab littleness

the body of your holiness,

the flesh that God without you cannot have.

Even God waits 

to see the miracle,

the birth that only you can birth.

 

There is no test for paradise,

only paradise.

Say yes.

 

😇

_________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

 

  

http://www.designlovefest.com/2012/12/holiday-centerpiece/

 

 

addictions of poetry   

  

 

 Slowly coming to acknowledge out loud that poetry is everything to me. I cannot live without it the way that others need love or religion or purpose or cause. Nothing, except the softness of the body, ignites me more. Nothing fills, feeds or illuminates me like this. To find a new poet is like being returned to an old love. To discover a lover of poetry is like being returned to someone from my original tribe. Completely thrilled this morning to be lying in my bed silently reading Nariyyah Waheed. Thrilled. Here are a few sweet lines. https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/7145613.Nayyirah_Waheed
   – Jen Lemen

  
I read poetry 

And it’s so familiar 

I like this way of words.  

I slip into the passion, 

the broken hearts,

so like my own. 

The depth of loving, 

it is my own. 

The beauty,

these words caught inside 

someplace within myself, 

suddenly breaking free from this other angle. 

Broken love, 

twisting in the wind of unequal relationships. 

The parables, 

the simple narrative, 

the stark condensed truth, 

the healing, 

the beauty of nature, home, love, life, laughter…

Anything can become a poem. 

Words strung,

so like my own way, 

yet not,

new, 

fresh,

sometimes not quite understandable, yet. 

I am in love with poems. 

I learn from their awareness 

I may get tired of my own heart wringing words,

I may get bored with my own platitudes, 

but, everyday,

I find the words in poems of another

to inspire me,

to allow me to see,

to teach me,

to make me laugh,

to get me through my day. 

Everyday I realize how much poetry means to me

I am so blessed to be a small part of this magic. 

I love poems. 

I need poems. 

I am a poet. 

That settles in a good spot within me,

as I settle in, 

with the perfect shade of coffee, 

to read my morning dose. 

🤗

AL

 

  

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

love beyond reason. trust without borders

   
  

photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT  
 We develop grace as we learn with the guiding hand of the universe, life will unfold exactly the way it should.

The idea of trusting the universe is a popular one these days, but many of us don’t know what this really means and we often have a hard time doing it. This is partly because the story of humankind is most often presented as a story about struggle, control, and survival, instead of one of trust and collaboration with the universe. Yet, in truth, we need to adhere to both ideas in this life. 
On the one hand, there is much to be said about exerting control over our environment. We created shelter to protect ourselves from the elements. We hunted for animals and invented agriculture to feed ourselves. We built social infrastructures to protect ourselves and create community. This is how we survive and grow as a civilization. However, it is also clear that there are plenty of things that we cannot control, no matter how hard we try, and we often receive support from an unseen force – a universe that provides us with what we cannot provide for ourselves. 
It is a good idea to take responsibility for the things in life that we can control or create. We work so we can feed, clothe, and shelter our loved ones and ourselves. We manifest our dreams and visions in physical form with hard work and forethought. But at a certain point, when have done all that we can, we must let go and allow the universe to take over. This requires trust. It requires a trust that runs deeper than just expecting things to turn out the way we want them to. Sometimes they will, and sometimes they won’t. We develop equanimity and grace as we learn to trust that, with the guiding hand of the universe, life will unfold exactly the way it should. We are engaged in an ongoing relationship with a universe that responds to our thoughts and actions. 

🌀

dailyom.com

by Madisyn Taylor

 

   

  

  

  

 Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half heard, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea. 

Quick now, here, now, always – 

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)…

    – T. S. Eliot

🌀

‘What if it were so much

simpler than that’

said the wiseman. 
‘But …’ said the fool

🌀

But Said the Fool by Nic Askew

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