Happiness | life: acoustic & amplified

Archive for the category “Happiness”

20 Feb 2016

morning blessing

photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT

I place on the alter of dawn:

The quiet loyalty of breath,

The tent of thought where I shelter,

Waves of desire I am shore to

And all beauty drawn to the eye.
May my mind come alive today

To the invisible geography

That invites me to new frontiers,

To break the dead shell of yesterdays,

To risk being disturbed and changed.
May I have the courage today

To live the life that I would love,

To postpone my dream no longer

But do at last what I came here for

And waste my heart on fear no more.

🌀

– John O’Donohue
Excerpt from, ‘A Morning Offering’

TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US (US) / BENEDICTUS (Europe)

In the space between breaths

It can be gone

A months worth of words

Erased with a fingertip

A 12, 30 even 60 year marriage over

With 4 words spoken:

I want a divorce

A home with all it’s possessions

Destroyed in a matter of minutes in the fury of nature –

Fire or storm

Life

Love

So fragile

With no guarantees

Of longevity

Or comfort

Begs to be felt

Now

To be counted for the sake of goodness

This is the only moment that counts

The only thing eternal

Don’t wait

Take a deep deep breath

Of the spirit that is giving it all

Say thank you

For the only gift that matters

The only thing that remains

All else can be destroyed

When nothing else remains

What is this eternal gift,

given new every morning?

Love

💖

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

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, beloved, Blessing, connection, courage, Faith, find art at pinterest, Glory, Gratitude, Happiness, inspiration, Letting Go, Life, light, Love, nature, Patience, Peace | Leave a comment

17 Feb 2016

am i?

Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.

Let this darkness be a bell tower

and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.

Move back and forth into the change.

What is it like, such intensity of pain?

If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,

be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,

the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,

say to the silent earth: I flow.

To the rushing water, speak: I am

🛤

qII, 29 [Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower] by Rainer Maria Rilke

Crossroads and choices, now is the time to decide which path will lead to the garden and more healthy life choices. One just doesn’t wait until Midsummer and think about growing fresh produce for a salad.

– Old Moss Woman’s Secret Garden/facebook

When an open heart meets an open hand, the result is more feast and more love, enough for a small village to be nurtured from this drawer alone. I see this and recognize him instantly: a soul brother, a lover of life, a father, a friend, a ringleader, a listener, a creative co-conspirator, a holder…of space, of hearts, of possibilities. A man with much to give and more to say, to a yearning, hopeful world.

– Jen Lemen

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

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, Beliefs, beloved, big, Blessing, Choice, commitment, connection, courage, determination, do, Faith, find art at pinterest, Happiness, healing, inspiration, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, Passion, Patience | Leave a comment

14 Feb 2016

bittersweet days

SECOND SIGHT
Sometimes, you need the ocean light,

and colors you’ve never seen before

painted through an evening sky.
Sometimes you need your God

to be a simple invitation

not a telling word of wisdom.
Sometimes you need only the first shyness

that comes from being shown things

far beyond your understanding,
so that you can fly and become free

by being still and by being still here.
And then there are times you want to be

brought to ground by touch

and touch alone.
To know those arms around you

and to make your home in the world

just by being wanted.
To see eyes looking back at you,

as eyes should see you at last,

seeing you, as you always wanted to be seen,

seeing you, as you yourself

had always wanted to see the world.

😍

Posted in find art at pinterest, Happiness, Letting Go, Life, Love, Relationships, soul and spirit, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

05 Feb 2016

Meet Me on Honeyspot Road

notice the world
whose whole reason is poetry

its heart beat music

of rhythm

of blues

teaching us to

touch

taste

smell

feel

move

always dancing

soul and spirit flying

life comes with sticky hands

people are always worthy

again and again

I fall for life as expressed in beautiful reality

the cold air numbs my hand

I come alive as I touch living water

the morning will come when

I will be coming home to you

💞

When I am with you, the only place I want to be is closer.

– unknown

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, find art at pinterest, Happiness, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, Peace, People | Leave a comment

02 Feb 2016

together in a hopeful world

Yesterday there was a facebook post from Jen Lemen over at Hopeful World http://hopefulworld.org (she’s one of my most admired people on the planet) telling me that it was a half-way-between-solstice moment and she would be burning a fire in celebration and prayer. If anyone wanted to be part…just say ‘yes’ and she would bring us! I said, ‘Yes, please’ as quickly as I could type it!!!
And so, last night, while I was sleeping…Jen Lemen was doing something so amazing, I get chill bumps every time I think about it!!! She was holding me, and mine, in that space between.

Yes, there was INTENTION, there was fire, there was singing, there was celebrating and grieving, there was prayer for the world, for everyone who requested it…and, Holy Batman, Batman, there was prayer for ME and all I hold within and without me.
What a gift! Beauty and all she is! Powerful and humbling! Encouraging and valuing! I feel it all this morning and I say, Thank you, Jen! Thank you, more than I can say! I am so blessed by you and your work!! 💞

I woke up to these words from Jen this morning:

Writing blessings. Saying prayers. May you be happy and peaceful. May no harm come to you. May no difficulty come to you. May you be deeply blessed. May you take care of anyone and everything smaller and sweeter than you are. May you surrender your power to make space for a forgotten voice. May you notice the earth and how she moves and breathes. May you say yes when you’re called and stay quietly beside until the time is right. May you become love and be love and find love and hope for more love, when others say it doesn’t matter or all hope is gone. #pathofprayerandpleasure #urbanfamily #bliss #mysticlife #blessings #imbolc #brigid #celticspring

🙏🏻

– Jen Lemen @ Hopeful World

http://hopefulworld.org

The poet gives you a little stone to stand on,

a ledge, a moment of the world or your own mind

to notice, to ground yourself in,

and from there to leap
maybe to another stone, a similar noticing,

maybe to another star, the light you are made of,

or a beauty pouring itself into you,

or maybe just leap all the way to God.
When you are praying

the smallest thing

can be what you stand on,

can be your prayer.
Any time, from even a single twig

you can leap

and wherever you land will be God.

The leaping is God.
__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

Follow and support Jen Lemen @

http://hopefulworld.org

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

Posted in action, Adventure, Alone, attitude, awareness, beauty, beloved, big, Blessing, Choice, connection, dark, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Glory, grace, Gratitude, Grieving, Happiness, Hope, inspiration, Letting Go, Life, light, Love, mystery, Passion, Prayer, receiving, Reflection, Relationships, soul and spirit, strength, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

22 Jan 2016

everyday hero

Quote of the Day: Virtue
Next to the seven deadly sins, the seven cardinal virtues are apt to look pale and unenterprising, but appearances are notoriously untrustworthy.
Prudence and temperance, taken separately, may not be apt to get you to your feet cheering, but when they go together, as they almost always do, that’s a different matter. The chain smoker or the junkie, for instance, who exemplifies both by managing to kick the habit, can very well have you throwing your hat in the air, especially if it happens to be somebody whom for personal reasons you’d like to have around a few years longer. And the courage involved isn’t likely to leave you cold either. Often it’s the habit kicker’s variety that seems the most courageous.
If you think of justice as sitting blindfolded with a scale in her hand, you may have to stifle a yawn, but if you think of a black judge acquitting a white racist of a false murder charge, it can give you gooseflesh.
The faith of a child taking your hand in the night is as moving as the faith of Mother Teresa among the untouchables, or Bernadette facing the skeptics at Lourdes, or Abraham, age seventy-five, packing up his bags for the Promised Land. And hope is the glimmer on the horizon that keeps faith plugging forward, of course, the wings that keep it more or less in the air.
Maybe it’s only love that turns things around and makes the seven deadly sins be the ones to look pale and unenterprising for a change. Greed, gluttony, lust, envy, and pride are no more than sad efforts to fill the empty place where love belongs, and anger and sloth just two things that may happen when you find that not even all seven of them at their deadliest ever can.

⚜

~ Frederick Bruechner originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words

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

Posted in action, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, commitment, connection, determination, Dreams, find art at pinterest, forgiveness, Freedom, Growth, Habits, Happiness, healing, Hope, Imagine, Impossible, inspiration, Joy, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, Passion, Patience, Peace, power | Leave a comment

17 Jan 2016

honored silence

If you have seen the snow
under the lamppost

piled up like a white beaver hat on the picnic table

or somewhere slowly falling

into the brook

to be swallowed by water,

then you have seen beauty

and know it for its transience.

And if you have gone out in the snow

for only the pleasure

of walking barely protected

from the galaxies,

the flakes settling on your parka

like the dust from just-born stars,

the cold waking you

as if from long sleeping,

then you can understand

how, more often than not,

truth is found in silence,

how the natural world comes to you

if you go out to meet it,

its icy ditches filled with dead weeds,

its vacant birdhouses, and dens

full of the sleeping.

But this is the slowed-down season

held fast by darkness

and if no one comes to keep you company

then keep watch over your own solitude.

In that stillness, you will learn

with your whole body

the significance of cold

and the night,

which is otherwise always eluding you.

❄️

Winter Grace by Patricia Fargnoli

Posted in Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Glory, Happiness, Letting Go, mystery, nature, Prayer, Reality | Leave a comment

13 Jan 2016

good stuff

Beloved,

you make the water of my life into wine,

my ordinary into your holy.
You request miracles of me

the moment before I know I’m ready.
What was for purification of uncleanness

you make into celebration of beauty.
You change my despair to gratitude

in secret, my dark certainty to wonder.
You make this life into a wedding feast,

my faithful marriage to the Holy One.
Always you turn piety into a party.

And always the best is yet to come.
This wine is not for discussion.

It’s to drink. It’s good. It’s really good.
Let’s dance.

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

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

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Blessing, Dancing, find art at pinterest, Glory, Happiness, healing, inspiration, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, Poetry | Leave a comment

04 Jan 2016

just for today

It took me some years to understand that many of us are more afraid of happiness than misery. Because misery and martyrdom have an inherent safety about them- one is never particularly vulnerable, nor at risk of disappointment. Unhappiness becomes a security blanket, a way to armor ourselves against deep feeling. On the other hand, happiness has an intrinsically risky quality. When we open our hearts to life, we are always vulnerable to loss, to shattering, to having it all fall away. But it can also expand and deepen, joyfully permeating every element of our life. I can often sense when someone has made unhappiness their shield, their perpetual life stance. And it saddens me. Because locking ourselves into only one way of being is a self-fulfilling prophecy: misery begets misery. Because only through risking something can we arrive at a new perspective. And most significantly, because the rhythms and tides of one’s life can shift in the blink of an eye. All it takes is one sunny day and the whole damn thing can come back to light.