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Archive for the category “Life”

12 Mar 2016

I want…

But I don’t want comfort.

I want poetry.

I want danger.

I want goodness.

I want freedom.

🔥

– Aldous Huxley

adventures don’t always lead to a good nights sleep,

I’ve found comfy beds are somewhat a rarity

on the road less traveled.

there’s an occasional soft, fluffy, sweet sinking into soft sheets,

hot water.

and though they appreciate those amenities when they come,

pilgrims don’t get used to those things.

the gifts of adventure are many and varied –

the very best of these gifts is

folks sharing themselves,

their food and drink,

their spare beds or sofas,

their conversation and hospitality,

their inmost parts vulnerable and open,

revealed completely

in the intimacy of how they live,

as, mostly unaware, they entertain angels.

no matter how humble,

or uncomfortable,

or even frightening and shocking at times,

we will find people living uniquely,

creating their own version of what works for them.

every lifestyle carries learning and vast wisdom.

receiving these amazing gifts of hospitality are one of life’s grandest joys and lessons.

I have found it true,

there are many things more important than physical comfort.

some of my most cherished memories,

the most generous gifts I have ever received,

include

smelly,

stinky,

lumpy,

hard,

sleep-depriving

surfaces

on which sleep is just a whimsical wish.

The blessing of adventure opens all the avenues of grace,

if we are willing to

open our minds and hearts in new ways,

then continue to explore past our need to be comfortable.

🔥

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Change, Choice, Freedom, friendship, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, nature | Leave a comment

11 Mar 2016

1 Comment

layer upon layer

I was born out of love and with a purpose unknown to me then, but revealed to me one day at a time.

☀️

Today by Walter Dunlevy

This world doesn’t improve by demanding perfection. It improves when we reach through our armor and touch another with tenderness. It improves when we bust through the walls of our conditioning, and try a new way of being on for size. It improves when we work through our unresolved shadow and share what little light we can find. It is the small, positive steps that we take when we are at war with ourselves that change the world.

☀️

– Jeff Brown

awe…
examination…
it keeps appearing…
again…
I delete…
again…
I delete…
haven’t I already written this poem?
haven’t I already done that one?
What is left that I haven’t taken out?
haven’t examined properly?
There are always layers…
As Shrek reminds me…
I am an onion…
layers…
illusions…
shadows…
truth left to excavate…
healing to be won…
motivations to uncover…
mystery to be discovered…
always more!
God keeps getting bigger…

and bigger…
as I examine…
reduce…
open…
help me to stay in this mode of self realization…
growth…
humble me…
my best self emerges within this process…
send it again…
remind me again…

💞

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

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, balance, Becoming Yourself, Choice, compassion, connection, courage, find art at pinterest, Freedom, Growth, Habits, inspiration, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, Passion

11 Mar 2016

the same moon

What light?
look yonder.
Is that a candle in the window of a stranger?

Is it the moon, which shines for all the same?
or could it be the glow of love
from the heart of a friend?
a fellow pilgrim with shining eyes.
a brother or sister,
who may not look like me,
may not talk like me,
but with whom I share the same royal bloodline –
the light of hope
which lives within all
created by God
for goodness sake
let me come near to you
let me share your pathway
let’s walk in this light together for a while
so I can learn your songs
and you can learn mine

🌝

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, connection, courage, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, healing, Joy, Life, Love, mystery, Peace, People | Leave a comment

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.

🌄

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, big, Blessing, Choice, connection, courage, find art at pinterest, Habits, healing, Hope, Imagine, inspiration, Letting Go, Life, light, Love, Miracles, mystery, nature, Passion | Leave a comment

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

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

Posted in America, anger, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, Beliefs, Career, Choice, compassion, confidence, connection, courage, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, Freedom, Hope, Imagine, Life, Peace, politics, power, Reality | Leave a comment

01 Mar 2016

conservation: only you can set your soul on fire

If you have one hour of air

And many hours to go,

You must breathe slowly.

If you have one arm’s length

and many things to care for,

You must give freely.

If you have one chance to know God

And many doubts, you must

Set your heart on fire.

We are blessed.

Each day is a chance.

We have two arms.

Fear wastes air.

🔥

Freefall by Mark Nepo

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

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, connection, courage, create, Glory, Letting Go, Life, light, Love, Passion, Poetry | Leave a comment

29 Feb 2016

extra special

An extra day —

Like the painting’s fifth cow, who looks out directly, straight toward you, from inside her black and white spots.

An extra day —

Accidental, surely: the made calendar stumbling over the real as a drunk trips over a threshold too low to see.

An extra day —

With a second cup of black coffee. A friendly but businesslike phone call. A mailed-back package. Some extra work, but not too much — just one day’s worth, exactly.

An extra day —

Not unlike the space between a door and its frame when one room is lit and another is not, and one changes into the other as a woman exchanges a scarf.

An extra day —

Extraordinarily like any other. And still there is some generosity to it, like a letter re-readable after its writer has died.

💌

February 29 by Jane Hirshfield

Posted in Adventure, art, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, Choice, commitment, confidence, connection, courage, dark, Death, determination, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Grieving, Happy Holiday!, healing, home, Letting Go, Life, Losing, Love, Reflection, soul and spirit, strength, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

29 Feb 2016

Catch that poem

Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.
☄

– Mary Oliver

Running to Catch a Poem: Remembering the Poet in the Story

Poems came to me

As if from far away.

I would feel them coming,

I would rush into the house,

Looking for paper and pencil.

It had to be quick,

For they passed through me

And were gone forever.

💫

– Ruth Stone, “Fragrance” (in her last collection “What Love Comes To”

💥

As a poet myself, I feel for Ruth Stone, because thanks to Elizabeth Gilbert, Stone’s mode of chasing poems like runaway horses is favorite, but few have read the poet herself or even remember her name. It’s well worth seeking out her work and noticing, along the way, how she rose above a dark river of grief and pain, especially after her second husband (also a poet) hanged himself from a door in the family home.
Oh yes. Then there are two delicious further revelations in Gilbert’s account of how she heard it from Stone. When a poem got away from her, she felt it galloping away, “searching for another poet”. Then sometimes she would manage to grab an escaping poem by the tail, and would feel herself pulling it back. “In these instances, the poem would appear on the page from the last word to the first – backward, but otherwise intact.” (Elizabeth Gilbert, “Big Magic”, 65.)
Many of us dreamers know exactly how that works, as we pull back dreams by the tail as they run away. How many of the dreams that escape go searching for another dreamer?

💫

Robert Moss