Grieving | life: acoustic & amplified

Archive for the category “Grieving”

30 Jan 2016

yesterday

yesterday I was born a leaf

a small fragile tender wisp

trembling as I hung on the vine

yesterday I was a gust of air

short lived, but not insignificant

full of bone rattling cold and hat disturbing bravado

yesterday I was a large, slow, snow flake

plopping down like a wet goose feather

making the world a magical place

yesterday I was a world made of glass

lying shattered on the floor

hoping to be recycled into a new and useful object

yesterday I was various people

a student, a host, a friend, a lover

feeling my way into the next moment hoping to find a way home

yesterday I stood tall as a tree

shaking, hurting, yet proud, with stubborn certainly

accepting what winter brings, gently weeping, waiting for spring

❄️

Posted in action, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blessing, connection, create, find art at pinterest, fragile, Grieving, Joy, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, nature, People, soul and spirit, strength, Trust, Uncategorized, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

28 Jan 2016

word of the day

listen
the word thumps its way

around my heart

like tennis shoes in the dryer

listen

stop speaking

suspend thought

judgement

whining

wanting

grief

action

just be still

silent

wait

tune in

go deep

listen

it will all come clear

mud will settle

pain clouds crystalize, dissolve

mirrors, and hearts,

tell their true story

we will know all we need to know,

to heal, to move forward,

if…
AL

Now the word of Yahweh came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Then I said, “Ah, Yahweh God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a child.” But Yahweh said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you, Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” Then Yahweh reached out and touched my mouth; and said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

—Jeremiah 1.4-10

Read it again. Put yourself in there.
Imagine God’s presence in you, God’s power—

not to get your own way, not to sway crowds,

but to convey love, to be truth,

not just to say words but to live life

with power in it.
You do not have to apologize for yourself.

You do not have to be afraid

of those to whom you bring yourself.

You only have to be yourself.
And because it is from God

the truth of you will prevail.
__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

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

Posted in action, attitude, awareness, Choice, connection, Faith, Grieving, Letting Go, Life, Love, Prayer, Reality | Leave a comment

15 Dec 2015

things will fit

We think we get over things.
We don’t get over things.

Or say, we get over the measles

but not a broken heart.

We need to make that distinction.

The things that become part of our experience

never become less a part of our experience.

How can I say it?

The way to “get over” a life is to die.

Short of that, you move with it,

let the pain be pain,

not in the hope that it will vanish

but in the faith that it will fit in,

find its place in the shape of things

and be then not any less pain but true to form.

Because anything natural has an inherent shape

and will flow towards it.

And a life is as natural as a leaf.

That’s what we’re looking for:

not the end of a thing but the shape of it.

Wisdom is seeing the shape of your life

without obliterating (getting over) a single

instant of it.

😘

The Cure by Albert Huffstickler

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

Posted in awareness, beloved, find art at pinterest, Grieving, Life, Love, Relationships, soul and spirit, Vulnerability | Leave a comment

02 Dec 2015

get quiet

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.

💞

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Choice, courage, find art at pinterest, fragile, Grieving, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, Patience | Leave a comment

28 Nov 2015

in a blue sky day

Woke up mid-dream

last night

(last night = wee hour morning)

Awakened by

broken sad mourning
My whole life

this date has been a celebration of life

My dad’s life –

a soul who entered this realm November 24 –

74 years of love ago
Today, this date brings tears

and morning mourning

Followed by blue sky

Up on the red roof

Fully alive

Generating compost

Organic buzzing be garden community possibility
Lost key

Kitchen studio

Boots on ladders

Roast beef sprout ciabatta

Pirates of the Carribbean

Stories of lobsters racing in

crusty rolls of butter
Once, years ago, I found my too soon gone Grandma

Today, in a swing overlooking a river

graced by such beautiful bridges

touching sky whilst grounding feet

step by stepping ever overwater

beneath sky,

I felt my daddy…
I sensed him smiling down upon November

gently holding my heart

and I couldn’t help but feel

the way he gently

firmly let go

of my pink stripe

banana seat bike

as I rode down the hill

of Kosta Drive

all those years ago
That moment I knew he knew

I could do this myself

And gave me the beautiful gift

of setting me

and my bicycle free.

🚲
Robin OK

Muse of Collaborative Completion + Visionary for Creative Collaborative ReTREATS

What is your incomplete creative project? Let me help you breathe it to life!

Phone: 513-659-3356

email: laughndream@gmail.com

website: laughanddream.com

💜

Don’t miss the 5th annual Creative Collaborative ReTREAT, Sep 30-Oct 2, 2016!

Website: creativecollaborativeretreats.com

email: creative.collaborative.us@gmail.com

In a day of goodness

We splashed this city all over outselves

Stopped to smell the lingering roses

Went home happily full from our adventures

Life is bittersweet

full of separation, loss, grief, and hurting hearts

full of friendship, adventure, kindness, beauty and truth

I love you

I miss you

I hurt

I laugh

Life is good

💞

I want my grief

to be brilliant, fast and gone.

Like Mozart. Or Stevie Ray.

Like fireworks. Boom! Flash!

Ooh, ahh. OK, done. Let’s go.
I want my grief to be brave.

Hurts more now, heals faster,

Grandma said, pouring salt

On a skinned knee.
I want to stand up to grief,

Stand it down, like the

Tiny man, big tank

In Tiananmen Square.
Because. Because if I am brave,

Bold, salty, open enough

The tank, the bleeding, the tears

Will stop sooner. I tell myself.
But grief laughs. Humbles me.

I lose keys, break cups, get lost.

Asked at CarMax Why are you

Selling this car? I burst
Into an embarrassment of tears.

A friend says, One doesn’t have grief,

Grief has you.

We wrestle, to the mat. I’m pinned.
But sometimes I break free.

Break patterns instead of dishes.

Start to write myself a new story,

To fling myself toward yes,
Begin to say, Oh. Now this. . . . Observe

What life brings. Reframe. Say,

I’m not wrestling grief,

We’re dancing.
So, I put my right foot in . . .

And turn myself about.

💔

I Want My Grief by Peg Runnels

Posted in Adventure, Alone, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, community, connection, Dreams, find art at pinterest, Freedom, friendship, Grieving, healing, inspiration, laugh, Letting Go, Life, Love, music, mystery, Passion, People, Reflection, Relationships | Leave a comment

18 Nov 2015

some things are sad

 Every now and then we leave off our pious yearnings,

and even our righteous ire,

and sit down to the hard work  of being sad for the world.

It takes guts,

God knows—

not anger but sorrow;

it tires prophets and psalmists alike.

The wolf that cries in the long valley,

the sea that chants its lament

over and over with sighs and tears,

the hermit on sore knees,

 the angels at their posts

taking turns offering up their  aching hearts,

even Christ weeping,

they can’t do it alone.

In the end

it is  the broken hearted

in whom we find  the deepest companionship.

We come away wet with grief

yet oddly strengthened

with the fibers of hope.

In grief for the world

we touch its worth.

In sorrow we find each other,

and there,

the substance of joy.

Weird, isn’t it,

how that alone

is the healing balm we ask?    __________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

“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 watered to full growth

Being alive does not come without cost

We love

we lose

we grieve

We lament

We love

We commune

We learn

We choose

to continue to make the choices

to love

to bring the song

that fills spring with joy

and the whole world

With light and love
AL

Posted in attitude, awareness, be, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blessing, Change, Choice, connection, courage, Grieving, Growth, Habits, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, music | Leave a comment

17 Nov 2015

even on the hard days

Respectfully given,

exalted being

full of grace,

remember to forget:

surrender struggles to catch it’s breath,

then falls soft

as evening prayers at twilight,

gathering into the corners of our hearts

before falling full

onto the center of our living circle,

free and happy as a Friday night.

next morning’s sun fills us,

each day, each season.

nurture moves with grace,

evolving slowly thru

our caring hands,

our grieving hearts,

our shared experience,

our acts of courage,

the healing salt of our tears,

the energy generation of our joy.

with pieces of our true love,

we fly flags,

of prayer,

of peace,

of poems,

of our own making

to heal the worlds –

within us/

without us.

we allow –

simply complex.

we understand –

clearly unclear.

we stand and fill our world with

the beauty,

the mystery,

of sound,

of hum,

of laughter,

of voice,

of music,

protecting us

from lesser gods,

the terror all around.

love is the shield,

love is the answer,

love is the choice,

love is our glory,

our salvation,

crowning us

sons and daughters

of the King.

at times,

in spite of our broken pieces,

our refusal to believe,

even our darkened hearts.

–

astonishing,

isn’t it?

❣

A sob in the night

awakens us from dreams,
a crack opens in the wall

and in seeps the dark stream
with pieces of broken things in it,

and blood, and our own ragged edge,
and in seeps the light,

and the voice singing.
We want to pull the wall around us,

the sorrow pouring in,
but it is breached now,

it is only an illusion,
and we are out in the dangerous light,

the fragile street,
tender as everyone else,

ready to duck, ready to weep.
We are all refugees now,

foreigners, except to foreigners.
It’s the egg that is cracked,

the stone rolled away.
If there is a place for love,

for your own brave soul, this is it.
The cord in another’s heart

knotted in yours,
the hand reaching for you

you can reach out to.
Terror and the stillness,

and the voice singing.
__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

and for each person in this world 🙏🏻

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, Change, Choice, connection, courage, create, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, friendship, fun, grace, Gratitude, Grieving, Growth, healing, home, Hope, Imagine, inspiration, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, Patience, Peace, People, perceptions, Poetry, Prayer, receiving, Relationships | Leave a comment

30 Oct 2015

let the light

You work with what you are given,

the red clay of grief,

the black clay of stubbornness going on after.

Clay that tastes of care or carelessness,

clay that smells of the bottoms of rivers or dust.
Each thought is a life you have lived or failed to live,

each word is a dish you have eaten or left on the table.

There are honeys so bitter

no one would willingly choose to take them.

The clay takes them: honey of weariness, honey of vanity,

honey of cruelty, fear.
This rebus —slip and stubbornness,

bottom of river, my own consumed life—

when will I learn to read it

plainly, slowly, uncolored by hope or desire?

Not to understand it, only to see.
As water given sugar sweetens, given salt grows salty,

we become our choices.

Each yes, each no continues,

this one a ladder, that one an anvil or cup.
The ladder leans into its darkness.

The anvil leans into its silence.

The cup sits empty.
How can I enter this question the clay has asked?

🔹

Rebus by Jane Hirshfield

The lion still roars
I walk in grief

On the purple beach

the grey-green water

meeting the sky

Into infinity

the world unending

I sit on driftwood

Fascinatingly carved by water

Into pieces of art

and shapes that look like

cattle skulls in the desert

I cry as I pick up rocks

Why do i grieve such simple things?

Those precious shells

I spent hours snorkeling for

In 1985

You polished them

til they were smooth as silk

So beautiful

I loved everything about them

and that memory they held

Back When the world was still

A mystery

And I knew nothing about hardship

Loss or pain

I thought love and life were simple

That you wanted me to be happy

That you loved me

That we would build a family together

I kept those shells in a special jar

Would let the kids play with them

For a special treat

I loved their delight in them

As they played for hours

sorting the colors and shapes

Loving the story of us at the start

I Kept them close to me

Through all the losses

Then they were gone

lost to me forever

way after my innocence

but somehow they took

some shred I was holding on to

Some secret part of me and you

that was still beautiful
As I picked up small beautiful rocks

today at the beach

They reminded me

and it all returned

all the losses

all the pain

What you chose

The choices I was forced to make

The price of gaining my soul

The cost of winning my freedom

I cry so deeply

Right to the core

such intense love

for the wounded heart

carried in small pieces

of the world

connecting all the pain

and love together

Bittersweet grief

Bittersweet love

Exquisite pain

Exquisite joy

Will I ever find love that understands this?

Will I ever share this same heart as one?

Will I ever make it home?

Will I ever make it?

Will I ever?

Will I?

Will?

💙

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

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, connection, courage, dark, Death, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, giving, grace, Grieving, Growth, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, Reflection, soul and spirit, Trust, truth, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

20 Oct 2015

one step

The wasps outside

the kitchen window

are making that 

thick, unraveling sound  again,

floating in  and out

of the bald head  of their nest,

seeming not to move

while moving, 

and it has just occurred  to me,

standing,  washing the coffeepot,

watching them hang 

loosely in the air—

thin  wings;

thick, elongated  abdomens;

sad, down- pointing antennae—

that this  is the heart’s constant project:

this simple  learning;

learning  how to hold

hopelessness  and hope together;

to see on the unharmed  surface of one

the great scar  of the other;

to recognize  both

and to make  something of both;

to desire everything  and nothing

at once

and to desire it  all the time;

and to contain that desire  fleshly,

in a body;  to wash it and rest it

and feed it;

to learn  its name and from whence  it came;

and to speak  to it—oh,

most of all  to speak to it—

every day, every day, 

saying to one part,

“Well, maybe this is all  you get,”

while saying  to the other,

“Go on,  break it open, let it go.”
💞

Want by Carrie Fountain

Have you sat with grief?

Have you let it wring you dry?

Leave you swollen and exhausted

in it’s wake?

Allowed the pain from the inner depths of hell,

deeper than you knew existed,

to ooze out,

bubble up into your heart,

so that your tears could begin

to wash you clean?

Have you asked yourself

the questions with no answers?

then allow them to just co-exist with you,

allowing that life is good,

finding space for gratitude

even in the unanswerable?

Have you walked, and talked,

with death and your losses?

The innocence murdered

by anger and hate?

Precious time stolen

by monsters and ogres?

Hearts trampled

by words of violence and sarcasm?

Are you familiar with vulnerability?

With allowing your deepest feelings,

painful feelings,

raw feeling,

real feelings,

to come out of the grave

where you try to hide them?

Exposing your wounds,

old and new?

I know how hard it is,

I know.

I try to avoid it too.

I also know the truth.

It must be done.

It is the broken road to healing.

To life!

The more we feel,

the more we can feel.

Go deep, my friend

Open up wide.

Sit a spell and let it bubble.

Feel it all.

It will feel rotten for a while,

then comes the morning

you wake up good as new!

New and improved.

I promise you won’t regret it.

Just trust me on this one.

I am intimately familiar

with this process.

💔

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

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blessing, Change, Choice, compassion, connection, courage, force, grace, Grieving, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, soul and spirit, strength, touch, Trust, truth, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

19 Sep 2015

giving thanks

Can I believe being thankful in all circumstances is important because it acknowledges that during the dark times of change, God is still covering me with His hand?

🔹

– Kristen Strong @ A Holy Experience

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2015/09/when-youre-desperate-to-find-the-light-when-there-are-no-windows/

facebook/follow the art

When we descend all the way down to the bottom of loss, and dwell patiently, with an open heart, in the darkness and pain, we can bring back up with us the sweetness of life and the exhilaration of inner growth. When there is nothing left to lose, we find the true self – the self that is whole, the self that is enough, the self that no longer looks to others for definition, or completion, or anything but companionship on the journey.

– Elizabeth Lesser

bottom 2 photos found at www.pinterest.com

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Change, Choice, connection, courage, dark, Grieving, Growth, healing, Hope, Life, light, Love, Reflection | Leave a comment

life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Grieving”

yesterday

word of the day

things will fit

get quiet

in a blue sky day

some things are sad

even on the hard days

let the light

one step

giving thanks

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