life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Imagine”

09 Mar 2016

uphold the integrity of the quest   – spoken @ Infusion Cincinnati 

 

A GLIMPSE

The beauty of the imagination is that it can discover such magnificent vastness inside a tiny space. Our culture is dominated by quantity. Even those who have plenty hunger for more and more. Everywhere around us, the reign of quantity extends and multiplies. Sadly the voyage of greed has all the urgency but no sense of destination. Desire becomes inflated and loses all sense of vision and proportion. When beauty becomes an acquisition it brings no delight. When time seemed longer and slower, the eye of the beholder had more space and distance to glimpse the beautiful. There was a respect for the worlds that could be suggested by a glimpse. 

☄

 John O’Donohue 

 Excerpt from BEAUTY

  

I steal glimpses of beauty,

in all she is – 

this moment,

sky in my rearview. 

A huge bowl of rainbow sherbet

my favorite-color-kind

with raspberry, orange & lime

swatches of lemon, indigo & periwinkle 

float like barges –

in, out 

&

around.

Framing. 

Dancing. 

Living. 

At one point tangerine fills the top of the hilly crest,

headlight stars 

blaze brilliant against the backdrop. 

Indigo stretched above, framing this momentary masterpiece. 

At times I find it hard to keep moving forward

into the matt gray of drudgery ahead.

With so much loveliness going on 

right behind me…

how can I keep heading away from it?

How can I not be a part of this splendor?

Eventually, midnight blue seizes its moment of glory,

then night falls over all, 

and I am left,

aching with the beauty,

the majesty,

the extravagant display,

of this wonderful world. 

I go to wondering

if this longing in my heart

will ever be answered?

If my whole life I will wait 

for a moment which will never come? 

Will it never be realized under this piece of sky? 

Will it always be this whisper?

The magic of hope,

this thing with wings, 

hovering over my heart

for another 50 years, 

echoing on into eternity.  

🌄

AL

   


  

 

 

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05 Mar 2016

take a breath

  
In these times when anger

 Is turned into anxiety

 And someone has stolen

 The horizons and mountains,
Our small emperors on parade

 Never expect our indifference

 To disturb their nakedness. 
They keep their heads down

 And their eyes gleam with reflection

 From aluminum economic ground,
The media wraps everything 

 In a cellophane of sound,

 And the ghost surface of the virtual

 Overlays the breathing earth. 
The industry of distraction

 Makes us forget

 That we live in a universe. 
We have become converts

 To the religion of stress

 And its deity of progress;
That we may have courage

 To turn aside from it all

 And come to kneel down before the poor,

 To discover what we must do,

 How to turn anxiety

 Back into anger,

 How to find our way home. 

🏡

John O’Donohue 
‘For Citizenship’ from BENEDICTUS

  

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.         – Jean-Paul Sartre

  
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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 

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26 Dec 2015

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

  

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19 Dec 2015

loving you loving me 

 

 I have loved in life and I have been loved. 
I have drunk the bowl of poison from the hands of love as nectar, 

and have been raised above life’s joy and sorrow. 

My heart, aflame in love, set afire every heart that came in touch with it. 

My heart has been rent and joined again; 

My heart has been broken and again made whole; 

My heart has been wounded and healed again; 

A thousand deaths my heart has died, and thanks be to love, it lives yet. 

I went through hell and saw there love’s raging fire, 

and I entered heaven illumined with the light of love. 

I wept in love and made all weep with me; 

I mourned in love and pierced the hearts of men; 

And when my fiery glance fell on the rocks, the rocks burst forth as volcanoes. 

The whole world sank in the flood caused by my one tear; 

With my deep sigh the earth trembled, and when I cried aloud the name of my beloved, 

I shook the throne of God in heaven.

I bowed my head low in humility, and on my knees I begged of love, 

“Disclose to me, I pray thee, O love, thy secret.” 

She took me gently by my arms and lifted me above the earth, and spoke softly in my ear, 

“My dear one, thou thyself art love, art lover, 

and thyself art the beloved whom thou hast adored.

🤗

Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Dance of the Soul

 

   

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

  
 

Posted in action, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Choice, courage, find art at pinterest, Imagine, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, Passion | 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?

❣

AL

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 🙏🏻

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23 Oct 2015

be brave 

 

 Most of the greatest achievements on the planet are unknown to others – private overcomings, silent attempts at belief, re-opening a shattered heart. The real path of champions truly lies within – the transforming of suffering into expansion, the clearing of horrifying debris, the building of a healthy self-concept without tools. The greatest achievers have found a way to believe in something good despite being traumatized and fractured on life’s battlefields. No matter what else they accomplish in their lives, they are already champions. One day the world will realize that it is much harder to heal a shattered heart than excel at athletics. Go(l)d medals all around…
   – Jeff Brown

  
They have told you to be quiet

since your crib,

when your needs, your cry for the divine

disturbed them.

You too have learned the command,

to silence your soul, to silence others.

Stand still and listen: 

what is the voice within, crying out, silenced? 
Rise; take heart.

The Beloved is calling you,

wants to hear your plea,

to honor your word,

to hear what has not been spoken,

wants you to come, 

to ask for what must be asked for

and must be given.
Now, you have been called

and you have been heard.

Whom have we silenced?

Whom are you called to call

to reveal

the miracle of God? 

Rise, take heart.

The Beloved is calling you.

__________________ 
Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

 

  

   
  
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 

So fragile 

With no guarantees 

Of longevity 

Or comfort 

Begs to be lived 

Now 

To be counted for the sake of goodness 

This is the only moment that counts 

Don’t wait 

Take a deep 

deep breath 

of the spirit that is giving it all 

There is only one thing eternal

Say thank you 

For that one thing that will always remain

All else can be destroyed 

But not this. 

What is this eternal gift? 

this one and only gift that remains, that matters?

You already know…

say it together now…

Love 

💞

AL

Listen to Gavin Rossdale sing Love Remains the Same 

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

Posted in attitude, awareness, be, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, Beliefs, beloved, Blessing, Change, Choice, commitment, courage, Encouragement, healing, Imagine, Letting Go, Life, Love | Leave a comment
24 Jun 2015

we will be known among the stars for our poems.  – Sir Ken Robinson

 

watch and listen to Sir Ken Robinson on the Power of Imagination! If you haven’t seen his TED talk about education…it’s a very worthwhile watch!! http://youtu.be/ywtLnd3xOVU

   

Listen to Maroon 5 sing Pure Imagination http://youtu.be/cWGeCqszY8s 

🙇🏻🙇🏻🙇🏻🙇🏽🙇🏾🙇🏿🙇🙇🏻

photo sources at www.pinterest.com/al513 

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24 Feb 2015

be still

In the quiet spaces of my mind a thought lies still, but ready to spring. 
It begs me to open the door so it can walk about. 
The poets speak in obscure terms pointing madly at the unsayable. 
The sages say nothing, but walk ahead patting their thigh calling for us
       to follow. 
The monk sits pen in hand poised to explain the cloud of unknowing.
The seeker seeks, just around the corner from the truth. 
If she stands still it will catch up with her. 
Pause with us here a while. 
Put your ear to the wall of your heart. 
Listen for the whisper of knowing there. 
Love will touch you if you are very still.

If I say the word God, people run away. 
They’ve been frightened—sat on ’till the spirit cried “uncle.” 
Now they play hide and seek with somebody they can’t name. 
They know he’s out there looking for them, and they want to be found, 
But there is all this stuff in the way.

I can’t talk about God and make any sense, 
And I can’t not talk about God and make any sense. 
So we talk about the weather, and we are talking about God.

I miss the old temples where you could hang out with God. 
Still, we have pet pounds where you can feel love draped in warm fur, 
And sense the whole tragedy of life and death. 
You see there the consequences of carelessness, 
And you feel there the yapping urgency of life that wants to be lived. 
The only things lacking are the frankincense and myrrh.

We don’t build many temples anymore. 
Maybe we learned that the sacred can’t be contained. 
Or maybe it can’t be sustained inside a building. 
Buildings crumble. 
It’s the spirit that lives on.

If you had a temple in the secret spaces of your heart, 
What would you worship there? 
What would you bring to sacrifice? 
What would be behind the curtain in the holy of holies?

Go there now.


What’s in the Temple by Tom Barrett









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29 Jan 2015

dreaming

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If I could lift that corner of sunlight that slants
that cuts a dashing swath of burnt yellow across the room,
I would swirl it around without a care and toss it
across my shoulders and breathe in its warmth,
its musty breathe redolent with time without end.

I would huddle within its glorious arms, sinews melting,

and dream of fields under a summer sky.

Rama Desai
https://ramaink.wordpress.com

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Gayatri Prayer

You who are the source of all power,
Whose rays illuminate the world,
Illuminate also my heart
So that it too can do Your work.
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
While reciting this prayer, visualize the sun’s rays streaming forth into the world, entering your heart, then streaming from your heart’s center back into the world.
💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞

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