life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Letting Go”

26 Jun 2016

check in


thank you, dear heart,

for being so brave,

for the courage to stay open,

for giving, and receiving, love,

for taking me into battles

and winning wars with your ferocious strength

for valiantly defending your fragile tenderness 

for loving your own terrible beauty 

for revealing your deepest darkness to the light of discovery

and laying open your wounds to the healing air

for being willing to walk into heartbreak again and again,

knowing what you do. 

For, even when you are shaking afraid,

you always shout,

‘YAY!’

‘Yes’

‘Let’s dance’ 

and

‘I gotta have more cowbell…’

Thank you for your life giving work

your refusal to quit

your belief in the way I live

I adore you

I honor you

I cherish and bless

your amazing work 

in my chest,

in my world,

in my relationships,

and in my wanderings. 

I give you the gift of the best me,

in every moment we have together,

the brightest shining light, 

I can be

we do good work, girl,

you got the beat,

Oh, skip it, Let’s roll!
Yours forever true, 

❤️

AL





Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, commitment, compassion, connection, courage, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, grace, Gratitude, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, soul and spirit, transformation, Trust, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
25 Jun 2016

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

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blog, Burnign Bridges, Change, Choice, connection, courage, determination, find art at pinterest, Happiness, healing, inspiration, Letting Go, light, Love, Passion, Reality | Leave a comment
23 Jun 2016

a little breaking to know you’re alive


HEARTBREAK is unpreventable; the natural outcome of caring for people and things over which we have no control, of holding in our affections those who inevitably move beyond our line of sight.
Heartbreak begins the moment we are asked to let go but cannot, in other words, it colors and inhabits and magnifies each and every day; heartbreak is not a visitation, but a path that human beings follow through even the most average life. Heartbreak is an indication of our sincerity: in a love relationship, in a life’s work, in trying to learn a musical instrument, in the attempt to shape a better more generous self. Heartbreak is the beautifully helpless side of love and affection and is just as much an essence and emblem of care as the spiritual athlete’s quick but abstract ability to let go. Heartbreak has its own way of inhabiting time and its own beautiful and trying patience in coming and going.
Heartbreak is how we mature; yet we use the word heartbreak as if it only occurs when things have gone wrong: an unrequited love, a shattered dream, a child lost before their time. Heartbreak, we hope, is something we hope we can avoid; something to guard against, a chasm to be carefully looked for and then walked around; the hope is to find a way to place our feet where the elemental forces of life will keep us in the manner to which we want to be accustomed and which will keep us from the losses that all other human beings have experienced without exception since the beginning of conscious time. But heartbreak may be the very essence of being human, of being on the journey from here to there, and of coming to care deeply for what we find along the way.
…If heartbreak is inevitable and inescapable, it might be asking us to look for it and make friends with it, to see it as our constant and instructive companion, and even perhaps, in the depth of its impact as well as in its hindsight, to see it as its own reward. Heartbreak asks us not to look for an alternative path, because there is no alternative path. It is a deeper introduction to what we love and have loved, an inescapable and often beautiful question, something or someone who has been with us all along, asking us to be ready for the last letting go.

💔

‘HEARTBREAK’ From 

CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment 

and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.

© 2015 David Whyte



If I wrote a poem today
it would be the saddest one you would ever read
It would break your heart into small pieces
and scatter them all over the world
It would cause you to cry new oceans into existence,
and all the stars would burn out from the pain of its essence 
Global chaos would ensue 
the world, as we know it, end
Therefore, I will not write a poem today
I will wait for another day 
when love has found me again
and my heart is a riot of joy 
rather than sadness
Then I’ll write a poem so brilliant
so brimming with happiness
it will create a new heaven
and a new earth 
where we will dance forever 

under skies forever blue
👫
AL

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Choice, connection, find art at pinterest, Letting Go, Life, Love, risk, soul and spirit, strength, transformation, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
22 Jun 2016

feeling it down to the marrow 


Life itself is the great sacrament through which we are wounded and healed. If we live everything, life will be faithful to us. 

❤️

  – John O’Donohue


this birth of awaiting changes
this for that
tit for tat
tuxedo memories
pinstripe debonair
glamour hangs
like confetti in the air
life goes 
round and round
flinging dreams
synthetic roads
leading nowhere 
screams and laugher 
hardest when not fair
up one side now
down the other there
we hang on
we stomp our feet 
and swear
this ain’t right
this we cannot bear
life goes forward
ever on and on
wanting only
to change our point of view
we are loved
no matter what we lose
love will win
love always life’s sweet muse
sight or blind
the vision ours to choose
❤️
AL

Men must endure / Their going hence even as their coming hither; / Ripeness is all. 

    – William Shakespeare / King Lear 

Posted in action, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, connection, find art at pinterest, Growth, Habits, Happiness, inspiration, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, risk, soul and spirit, strength, transformation, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
21 Jun 2016

st..st…stuck…


Stuck in the blues.  
I get stuck on silly things

Like rainy days

when my phone rings

I get stuck in parking spaces

And in hugs of biblical proportion

I get stuck in desperation of 

empty wallets

And gas tanks

And stomachs

And stalkers

And water bills

And Freddies

Some days i just get stuck in bed

Covers all up o’er my head

‘I cant get up’, I tell my clock,

‘Cause I am stuck, 

So just shut up’

I get stuck when my pillow gets hot

Or when it’s cold and I cry 

And ice sickles hang from my eyelashes  

I get stuck on random things

Like boots and shoes

And onion rings

When socks don’t match

Or there’s no cream

for my coffee

or my pie 

I get stuck

when stupid songs stick in my head 

The ones I just don’t want to sing

I get stuck when I think about what I want

Instead of what I have

I get stuck in a few more minutes…

Or another year goes by

Reminding me

I might get stuck dancing…

At your wedding to someone else,

Or on your grave,

Or in a dream about Madonna, and bananas and a cat who likes to pray

I get stuck eating meatball subs

And pumpkin muffins with extravagant amounts of butter

at times I get stuck in the blues

I know it’s sad

Yet mighty true

the hardest times to get unstuck

Are when my mind gets stuck on you

Stuck on you

Stuck on you

Yes I get stuck

Stuck…

St…st..st…stuck on you

☺️

AL 


Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love | Leave a comment
20 Jun 2016

nothing to hold


I am the watcher

I keep faith

I am here to observe

the passage

to be the extra set of questions

the guardian of the process

I cannot give you the will to live

I cannot bring happiness

I cannot set you free

I cannot influence the outcome

or your choices

I can only be the keeper of the light

I can only be the vessel of prayer

I can only carry hope in my heart

I can only move aside and allow love to flow through me

I can only stand with courage

I can only see you just as you are

I can only allow you to be your you-ness

I can only love and love and love

That’s what I am called to do

every place I go

😍

AL


my heart hurts today

for the pain you suffer,

for the pain you inflict. 

I feel great sorrow 

for what you have chosen to accept. 

for the manipulation you chose to live in. 

sadness sits on me 

like a heavy fog

as I drive

I wait. 

I pray. 

I pay,

the smarmy man,

with the weird goatee,

wearing the faded Jack Daniels t-shirt. 

It’s all happening outside of myself, 

even my drive home. 

I walk a mile quickly

upon my return, 

my angst, 

mixing with my grief. 

my tears haven’t stopped all morning. 

I walk this beach,

so familiar, 

yet always new. 

I pick up rocks with cold, sandy gloves,

filling my pockets. 

I stand while the gulls float,

so secure,

so assured,

so secure.

As I watch

peace finally descends,

fills me. 

I let go of you…

of my disappointment…

of my desire….

This is never easy for me. 

I fight letting go.

trusting is a ruthless business. 

I choose to live ruthlessly. 

I believe in it! 

I’m a just small part of this masterpiece of life. 

I acknowledge the blessed truth I know for sure:

I am uniquely loved!

beloved!

helped!

held!

Peace descends.  

I walk home in the calm, cold, air. 

I am never alone. 

I will never be abandoned. 

I am loved. 

truly and always. 

Amen. 

🙏🏻

AL

two jobs,

two stories,

two worlds even,

in one movement,

love and need and

nothing now or ever

to come between the two. 

💞

  – David Whyte

Posted in attitude, awareness, connection, courage, find art at pinterest, Freedom, Grieving, Letting Go, Love | Leave a comment
19 Jun 2016

light & shadow


Of the light in my room:

Its mood swings,

Dark-morning glooms,

Summer ecstasies.
Spider on the wall,

Lamp burning late,

Shoes left by the bed,

I’m your humble scribe.
Dust balls, simple souls

Conferring in the corner.

The pearl earring she lost,

Still to be found.
Silence of falling snow,

Night vanishing without trace,

Only to return.

I’m your humble scribe.
📝

Secret History by Charles Simic 


Sleep hangs in soft evening light

in the corners of the room –

like an old pair of favorite pants,

slightly baggy,

immensely comfortable,

a few worn-thru patches of natural ventilation. 

Soft, favorite, go-to pants 

for days off. 

Those ones always ready to take you anywhere in comfort,

on a day where you are

not trying to impress anybody –

just need to be the real you. 

Stripped of pretense. 

A day where dreams can change your living, 

and love songs can overflow inside

from start to finish. 

You eat dinner with friends. 

Savoring moments. 

Hoping this day of summer 

will linger long

like honey on your fingers 

after the toast is gone. 

Sweet and sticky,

clinging to everything. 

Extra goodness

for the tongues finding. 

Shadows fall. 

The day drops it’s load 

and lets go. 

Relaxing into nothingness,

eyes begin to see 

the spaces between worlds. 

Beauty fills the air,

waiting for me. 

In the quiet of the night,

I lie alone,

yet not… 

I am loved. 

Aware, as I float away,

just how magical 

a moment can be. 

🖋

AL

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, connection, dark, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, light, moment | Leave a comment
16 Jun 2016

into the silence


Now there was a great wind…

but the Lord was not in the wind;

and after the wind an earthquake,

but the Lord was not in the earthquake;

and after the earthquake a fire,

but the Lord was not in the fire;

and after the fire a sound of deep silence.

—1 Kings 19.11-12

Beneath the earthquake, wind and fire

that are always here

I listen for your silence

that is always here,

your deep, luscious silence

speaking to me, singing.
I listen to your deep silence

breathing in me.

I listen for the sound of it,

its great sea moving,

its stars whirling.

I listen into the deep

that welcomes me.
Beneath the noise and rush and flame

your silence unfolds in me,

the great rose of you

opening to my own silence

and I become your silence

unfolding into the world.

 

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net


to me great contentment is when you are able to sit on the porch looking at the beauty that God has made surrounding you, with a hot cup of coffee and nothing on your mind…

to drink in nature and commune in a silent, grateful, prayerful state without forcing words through your mind or your mouth…

just letting the thoughts slide through….coming and going as they will and feeling complete peace in your soul.

just to be in that moment and feel God’s presence and God’s peace to experience that moment of living…not expecting any- thing…

just feeling quite wonderful, not happy, not sad, just wonderful….very human and very alive.

it is interesting…because in the last couple of years…in some of my toughest times…I have experienced a lot of these wonderful moments of contentment…it is a complete surrender to the will of God and the Uni- verse – it is truly a wonderful thing…peace…

AL

 

good bye for now – new things being birthed 💞 peace

Posted in attitude, awareness, Change, Letting Go, Life, Love, quiet, Reflection, soul and spirit, transformation, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
15 Jun 2016

it always comes down to choices       

Only when we rest in God can we find the safety, the spaciousness, and the scary freedom to be who we are, all that we are, more than we are, and less than we are.

             – Richard Rohr


The quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves,

The full round moon and the star-laden sky,

And the loud song of the ever-singing leaves,

Had hid away earth’s old and weary cry.

And then you came with those red mournful lips,

And with you came the whole of the world’s tears,

And all the trouble of her laboring ships,

And all the trouble of her myriad years.

And now the sparrows warring in the eaves,

The curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky,

And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves,

Are shaken with earth’s old and weary cry.

😔

The Sorrow of Love by William Butler Yeats
———
Do you have any idea how many princesses have gone unrecognized by their prince because of logic? Or how many princes have gone unrecognized by their princess because of pride? 
How many dreams were dashed when the handmaiden answered the door? Or when the gatehouse was mistaken for the mansion? Or when the calm before the storm of abundance and good fortune was viewed as a sign to retreat? 
Happily, we’ve got forever and ever. And fortunately, it’s never too late to see what one’s missed, remain focused on the dream instead of the hows, and move with unwavering faith. 
Yeeeee-haaaaaaaaaa!! 

         The Universe

           www.tut.com


freedom, 

oh freedom,

that’s just some people talkin’

cause your prison is walking through this world 

all alone. 


there is terrible beauty in every human heart 
tell me a story that will live with me forever
love always shares grace always wins
you can’t miss out
pay attention…
the message is always revealed at the appointed intersection 
letting go brings the right miracle
at the right time the song playlist repeats 
crazy love flows into mystic waters
deep calling to deep
honor chooses to say yes to the best invitations
making the call brings me the messages I need 

there is always more than enough to share

gratitude buckets fill and overflow
removing scales from blurry, tearful, kaleidoscope eyes 
as perfect peace falls into rightful place
color shards blooming into new masterpieces of never before seen glory
diamonds dance on the water

herons bring messages of great importance, 

delivered via my beautiful Mama Bird, 

fluent in language of bird, tree, dreams and laughter…just to name a few. 
flaming beauty evolves, drives me to my knees,
shedding shoes, and fear, 
as I pray
I lift my face to the evening sky 

and soar free
full wing, open soul, with the hawks,
who always fly in trust that they are enough
right here, and in every tick of time,
in, and in-between, every click of the second hand,
around the bend of eternity and back again

💞

AL

Posted in Adventure, Alone, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, connection, courage, find art at pinterest, Letting Go, Life, Love | Leave a comment
13 Jun 2016

what matters most 


Real power has nothing to do with force, control, status, or money. Real power is the persistent courage to be at ease with the unsolved and the unfinished. To be able to recognize, in the scattered graffiti of your desires, the signature of the eternal.

💞

John O’Donohue 

Excerpt from ETERNAL ECHOES


there’s laughter in the air

flickering like candle light

touching hearts and ears

floating,

feather-like,

through the air around us,

between us. 

Soaking into our pores,

permeating our bones,

healing us,

making us strong. 

Why should we worry?

so, there’s a black cloud above us..

Let it stay…

or let it go….

let’s laugh till your bellies hurts. 

Then laugh some more, 

until the sun comes out 

just to find the reason, 

Till all the corners of the world 

need to wipe their eyes with us,

and, then, we all take a great, big sigh of relief…

😂

AL


such beautiful sunset photos taken today by my very, very special Allie Dolan, aka: Allie-girl. So blessed and grateful to have her back in my life 💞 @ Branford, CT

Posted in Choice, laugh, Letting Go, Love | Leave a comment

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