life: acoustic & amplified
poetry, quotes & thoughts about life
Archive for the category “Happiness”
the sensual colors of poetry
I like your wide open window soft abandon
your wild free wheelin rambunctiousness
your inexplicable
untamed
a soft new invention
a wilderness
a concoction of sensual indigenous aromas
and I want to hear you sing
your wild buffalo song
my axe wailing some new chord
with the sun on our backs
cool water in our packs
.
I want our hikes to go on for days
months years
exploring everything wild
and real
fully contaminated with green forest and wild herbs
till our blood is so fully and completely inoculated
with chlorophyll and light
that our dreams become plainly visible
.
as the light runs from the skies
and the sun dims
we will lie on warm ground
inventing a new perfume
under a blanket of whispering stars
🔥
Adam A. DeFranco
I’m in an open relationship
with my heart.
How can I contain my passion for snails?
For otters, milkweed in autumn,
the holes in old socks that live
for decades in a drawer,
stray cats, lonely porcelain
Sleeping Beauty and the Prince
salt and pepper shakers,
coyotes moaning in the wetland,
wayward petals that wander
far from their roses
on rain-swollen breaths of September.
Each creature, I’m afraid,
is my favorite partner.
You, you above all.
I say that to everyone, don’t I?
After love making,
the universe and I just lie here
gazing through our tears.
Who is the sweat-beaded Dancer?
Who is the Witness wearing only
a necklace of stars?
One who burns completely,
leaving neither smoke
nor ashes,
becomes pure.
❤️
Alfred K. LaMotte
Yes, God is mysterious as fog,
but please, don’t give me that stuff
about God playing hard to get.
She is so into you
I can’t believe you don’t see it.
She’s flagrant about it.
She writes you the steamiest letters
in the colors of sky and leaf,
in stone and sea and child,
her hands are all over you,
she has moves that—admit it—
make you blush.
He’s in your dreams,
whispers to you when you aren’t listening.
You think those scriptures are some dry text
but it’s him, fawning all over you,
saying your name.
She wears the most revealing outfits,
struts her stuff, begs for attention.
They’ve always been like that.
Going on singles cruises,
trolling the skankiest bars in town,
hoping for luck.
She has no shame, no holding back.
I’d take her aside and talk to her
about decorum and such,
but golly,
I can’t even get in the same room with her
without her climbing all over me.
She’s yours, mate.
Yeah, it’s a little wild. Razor’s edge.
I get why you pull back.
But listen.
Secretly, so in the dark you don’t even know,
it’s your own heart that’s flirting
with everything that moves.
She’s the one
who’s holding you quietly, calmly, murmuring,
“Easy. Easy. I’m right here.
You’ve got me. It’s OK.”
______________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
I want to kiss you forever
I want to lay with you
in a tangle of sheets and tongues and crazy, wild hair
with the rain beating against the foggy windowpane
and touch your face
as our warm
eyes and souls and bodies
melt into one
with God
the perfect trifecta
I want to stay there
forever
and then another endless, beautiful day
I’ll not ever ask for more
than to love
and be loved
like this
by you
💋
Amy Lloyd (AL)
You can
die for it–
an idea,
or the world. People
have done so,
brilliantly,
letting
their small bodies be bound
to the stake,
creating
an unforgettable
fury of light. But
this morning,
climbing the familiar hills
in the familiar
fabric of dawn, I thought
of China,
and India
and Europe, and I thought
how the sun
blazes
for everyone just
so joyfully
as it rises
under the lashes
of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many!
What is my name?
What is the name
of the deep breath I would take
over and over
for all of us? Call it
whatever you want, it is
happiness, it is another one
of the ways to enter
fire.
~ Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems
Remember: Joy is not a sin; sacrifice is not a virtue.
❤️ Paulo Coelho ❤️
awareness is the key to change
I tell my father about the way
I collect small things
in the sacs of my heart—
thick juniper berries
apple cores that retain their shape
and the click of shells
that sound like an oven baking.
He presses the mole on my shoulder
that matches his shoulder,
proof that I was not found
at the bottom of the sea.
I also got his feet, far from
Cinderella’s dainty glass slippers
— and fingers, too wide for most
Cracker Jack wedding rings.
I read how some mammals never
forget their young—
their speckled spots, odd goat
cries, or birthmarks on curved ivory tusks.
There must be some
thread of magic there
cooling honey to stone—where
like recognizes like or how
a rib seeks its twin.
🙋🏼🙋🏼
A Taste of Blue by Cynthia Manick
Our survival adaptations are so tough, but our wounds are so delicate. To heal, we have to lift the armor carefully- it saved our lives, after all. It’s like moving your best friend off to the side of the path. You don’t trample on her, you don’t hit her with a sledgehammer. You honor her presence like a warm blanket that has kept you safe and sound during wintry times. And then, when the moment is right, you get inside and stitch your wounds with the thread of love, slowly and surely, not rushing to completion, nurturing as you weave, tender and true. The healing process has a heart of its own, moving at its own delicate pace. We are such wondrous weavers…
💞
– Jeff Brown
TO STAND HERE
is to stand
at the center
of circle
after growing circle
and reach
in the mind
for a far circumference
that holds as focus
an interior so far in
so concentrated
with origin
we find ourselves
by looking out
at what looks back,
the lighted edge
of rock and sky,
the sweet
unmoving darkness
over the horizon
that makes
a perfect
beckoning symmetry
to the night
beneath our feet,
the underground
where light cannot live
but whose darkness
makes a ground
on which to stand.
The central
ancestral story
of those who
lived here
looking out
at the same horizon
and the same
surrounding
ground,
who saw a world
that witnessed them
at a privileged
center,
their lives caught
like ours
in the glance
of what lies beyond
only
for a fleeting
moment.
…
From LON’S FORT
From Pilgrim: Poems by David Whyte
Refuse to fall down
If you cannot refuse to fall down,
refuse to stay down.
If you cannot refuse to stay down,
lift your heart toward heaven,
and like a hungry beggar,
ask that it be filled.
You may be pushed down.
You may be kept from rising.
But no one can keep you from lifting your heart
toward heaven
only you.
It is in the middle of misery
that so much becomes clear.
The one who says nothing good
came of this,
is not yet listening.
–Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I’m not here to live up to your expectations and you’re not here to live up to mine.
– Bruce Lee
preserving by excusing
The true inner self
must be drawn up
like a jewel from
the bottom of the sea,
rescued from confusion,
from indistinction,
from immersion
in the common,
the nondescript,
the trivial,
the sordid,
the evanescent.
-Thomas Merton
Seed of Contemplation
words silently spoken
from the other room
words fitly
uttered aloud
in due time
silent revelry
of the heart
surrendered
to defeat
successful in distraction
sidetracked by our addictions of choice
too brilliant to be truly seen
waiting to die
too damaged to brave transparency
too convinced that ‘nothing can be done’ to brave self responsibility
too comfortable to say no to that monster keeping us chained to the weakest parts of ourselves
the bullsh** of wasted lives
the emptiness of wasting time
the cruel decisions of men drowning
the hopes of the weak trampled
the tragedy of the parental misguidance
ingrained foundations
the travesty of religion
gone wrong
it happens so often
doctrine and old false belief systems
becoming the
masters of deceit filled lives
rather than the servant
of love
oh soul arise and fight
break up the hallowed ground of the falsified truth
oh, my friend, take back your life
open the beautiful box
of your most vulnerable, passionate essence
the pope will never take your case
your parents will never grant permission
but then again,
why would you want them too?
This is your life!
Only you can stand for what is given you
take that buried coffin
out of the ground
plant a seed or two inside
No one else can do it for you
or take it away from you
just you
you can never be too sensitive
you already know the real truth
celebrate yourself
flaunt your true colors
they’re so very beautiful
remember to remember
only love is real
💞
Amy Lloyd (AL)
Help Me
As they’re used psychologically, words like repression, denial, sublimation, and defense all refer to one form or another of the way human beings erect walls to hide behind, both from each other and from themselves. You repress the memory that is too painful to deal with, say. You deny your weight problem. You sublimate some of your sexual energy by channeling it into other forms of activity more socially acceptable. You conceal your sense of inadequacy behind a defensive bravado. And so on and so forth. The inner state you end up with is a castle-like affair of keep, inner wall, outer wall, and moat, which you erect originally to be a fortress to keep the enemy out, but which turns into a prison where you become the jailer and thus your own enemy. It is a wretched and lonely place. You can’t be what you want to be there or do what you want to do. People can’t see through all that masonry to who you truly are, and half the time you’re not sure you can see who you truly are yourself, you’ve been walled up so long.
Fortunately there are two words that offer a way out, and they’re simply these: “Help me.” It’s not always easy to say them-you have your pride after all, and you’re not sure there’s anybody you trust enough to say them to-but they’re always worth saying. To another human being-a friend, a stranger? To God? Maybe it comes to the same thing.
Help me. They open a door through the walls, that’s all. At least hope is possible again. At least you’re no longer alone.
~ Frederick Buechner
originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words
check in
“This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs: to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, argue, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek.”
— from LEAP by Terry Tempest Williams
With Leap, Terry Tempest Williams, award-winning author of Refuge, offers a sustained meditation on passion, faith, and creativity-based upon her transcendental encounter with Hieronymus Bosch’s medieval masterpiece The Garden of Delights. Williams examines this vibrant landscape with unprecedented acuity, recognizing parallels between the artist’s prophetic vision and her own personal experiences as a Mormon and a naturalist. Searing in its spiritual, intellectual, and emotional courage, Williams’s divine journey enables her to realize the full extent of her faith and through her exquisite imagination opens our eyes to the splendor of the world. READ an excerpt: http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/191447/leap/
just because it’s awesome!
So I woke up and was going to do a post about grief and heartbreak…but then this came to me from Jen Lemen and changed my mind! Enjoy!!! More Soul Snacks could be on the way! You will get lots of crazy good stuff!!! Sign up now! xo
peace. love. seal the deal. – Miles
White and black cannot be found
in the ruins and valleys of a human face.
You’re the dust in a wrinkled rainbow,
whorled pallet of earth tones,
ginger, sorrel, burnt sienna.
Who called you “white,”
that disdain for shadows,
color of the fear of falling
through the prism of contradictions?
You are not white, you are oak,
apple wood and dandelion.
Make wine of yourself.
Make a barrel of your bones.
Acquire the flavor of your ancestors.
Who called you “black,”
that abstraction of a laughing tear?
You are not black, you have sown
sunset in your cheek furrows.
You are banyan, and mahogany,
kola nut and olive, cocoa bean of grief,
kinnikinnik of the sacred pipe.
You are the night.
Voracious love has dipped us both
in honey, meshed our dreams
in darkest cilia, netted our souls
like mushrooms in sweet loam,
the wild manure of one dragon.
Through innumerable pungent roots
the same juice bears us upward
into starlight.
🌠
Who Told You? by Alfred K. LaMotte
my heart hurts today
for this pain.
I feel great sorrow,
shattering grief,
love cracks me open,
allows me to feel this
hurricane of rage,
this fraction of our creation –
soul division.
for what we,
as human-kind,
have chosen to accept
within the soil of our borders,
our birthright is so much more.
we are each beloved.
we are royal, each and every one.
sadness sits on me,
a heavy fog,
as I drive,
wait,
pay,
that smarmy man
with the weird goatee,
wearing the faded Jack Daniels t-shirt,
I try to love him –
I humbly admit my failure today,
I promise to keep trying,
it is my only hope to change this world.
I return to my place in this universe,
the one I belong to for this moment –
I walk a mile quickly
my angst
mixing with grief
tears won’t stop
I walk this beach,
so familiar,
yet always new.
I pick up rocks,
I move from rocks,
to sand,
to benches.
I stand while the gulls float,
so easy,
so secure,
so assured,
so secure,
so loved,
so free.
As I watch
peace fills me…
I let go…
always a brutal struggle for this stubborn girl,
(I prefer to name that quality ‘determined’)
always, always, worth it.
trusting life is a ruthless business.
I choose to live,
I choose to feel,
I choose to open,
I choose to pay attention,
I choose to connect,
I choose to participate,
I choose to love,
ruthlessly.
What about you?
💞
AL
God grant you the eyes of heaven
to see each person’s divine belovedness
and so find joy.
God grant you a listening heart
to hear the cries of the silenced,
and so gain wisdom.
God grant you humility
that unburdened by yourself
you may be free.
God grant you courage
to enter the world’s dark wounds,
and so bring healing.
God grant you patience,
to know the strength of the long journey,
and so be given hope.
God grant you a heart of love,
to be moved to action,
and so receive deep peace.
God grant you God’s own spirit
to share in the healing of the world,
and so know God’s deep delight.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
stand up now
The World needs people…
Who cannot be bought;
Whose word is their bond;
Who put character above wealth;
Who possess opinions and a will;
Who are larger than their vocations;
Who do not hesitate to take chances;
Who do not loose their individuality in a crowd;
Who will be as honest in small things as in great things;
Who will make no compromise with wrong;
Whose ambitions are not confined to their own selfish desires;
Who do not believe that shrewdness, cunning and hardheadedness are the best qualities for winning success;
Who are not ashamed or afraid to stand for the truth when it is unpopular;
Who can say “no” with emphasis, although the rest of the world says “yes”.
💪🏽
– Ted w. Engstrom, from Motivation to last a lifetime
It doesn’t change when we stare at it from across the room. It doesn’t change when we sit in prayer and wish it away. It doesn’t change when we skirt the edges of the shadow. It doesn’t change when we pretend it’s all Go(o)d. It changes when we cross the sacred battleground willing to die to our truth. It changes when we look the lie in the eye until it has nowhere left to hide. It changes when we pick up the sword of truth and cut the falsity until it bleeds right through. The era of the sacred activist is upon us. Not the warrior run amok, but the benevolent warrior who fights for our right to the light. Some battles are worth fighting.
💪🏽
– Jeff Brown
It’s not easy
to do the hard thing
to lose
to stand
to eat
to sleep
alone
to wait
to be patient
to be strong
to allow the pain
the grief
the tears of exhaustion
frustration
weariness
to press on
to refuse to settle
to believe in spite of loss
to keep the fire warm
to build wells
to send out love
to melt your defenses
to keep touching the lepers
to allow healing to come
to ruthlessly let go
to remain open
and ready
to keep saying yes
not easy,
well worth it
💪🏽
AL
thanks-living
From this bench
I can see four Miles
I have walked Miles ahead with each
two have shared
this very spot with me
in flesh and bone
two have been here in the spirit
of friends benches
and Anam Cara soul connection
Miles
and
Miles
and
Miles
a dog named Miles –
and many the Miles
to come –
each of my Miles inform my living
have had vast impact
in my heart
Letting go is my continual lifework
surrender my career
I’ve let go of everyone,
everything,
I’ve ever loved.
I carry them,
green, rooted trees,
within me.
I am done with questions,
I am committed to this process of my becoming.
I am a force of the nature of love.
I have no regrets,
no demands.
I fly with the seagulls,
bend low before the burning bushes,
I sit in the holy hush of the Sound of silence,
letting go,
seeking new understanding.
the deep places within me
give thanks for each piece of love I have experienced,
The blue sky shouts out to me
all that is coming…
the best is always yet to be,
Yes, coming to me and through me,
as I break the newly discovered
hardened edges of my heart
to allow
freedom
for you
and
me
💜
AL
Where you belong should always be worthy of your dignity. – John O’Donohue
everything here
seems to need us
-Rainer Maria Rilke
😶🙃🙂
I can hardly imagine it
as I walk to the lighthouse,
feeling the ancient
prayer of my arms swinging
in counterpoint to my feet.
Here I am, suspended
between the sidewalk and twilight,
the sky dimming so fast it seems alive.
What if you felt the invisible
tug between you and everything?
A boy on a bicycle rides by,
his white shirt open, flaring
behind him like wings.
It’s a hard time to be human.
We know too much
and too little.
Does the breeze need us?
The cliffs?
The gulls?
If you’ve managed to do one good thing,
the ocean doesn’t care.
But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth,
the earth, ever so slightly, fell
toward the apple.
🍎
The World Has Need of You by Ellen Bass
4:08 pm Seattle
june 24, 2016
the beauty of comversations
so amazing
such glory in these connections
from all over the world –
we all have need of each other.
Front porches can be found anywhere.
We share lunch tables
and stories, oh so exciting.
The four friends head to the gate,
the two locals call a friendly greeting as they return to leave for home,
they remember my name –
it rings out in the busy airport!
Wave and smiling – I live here!
I sit and rejoice.
Write it. 🙂
I am enriched
by this going
by this obedience
by this calling
I have received such confirmation of my work.
So energized,
so blessed,
so excited,
so ready.
I am smiling as the guy above my table says,
So we must be in the allergy section….
(we talk throat clearing and
the fact that I have eaten gluten,
for a few)
Hi, I’m Gary…I’m Amy….
my next divine appointment
has just arrived…
we cross paths 2 or3 times,
then just sit
talk,
share,
connect,
sleep
(well, sorta…in a plane seat??????….winging to Phily)
we leave each other with a warm hug,
after an all night flight…
I am doing my work…
and it is good
✈️
AL
Today I wish you grand adventures, shared laughter and please, for goodness sakes, park with WILD ABANDON!! ❤️ xo
life: acoustic & amplified 