life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Life”

so inviting

  
AWAKEN TO THE INVITATION

As the density of night gives way to the bright song of the dawn, so your soul continually coaxes you to give way to the light and awaken. Longing is the voice of your soul, it constantly calls you to be fully present in your life: to live to the full the one life given to you. Rilke said to the young poet, “Live everything.” You are here on earth now, yet you forget so easily. You traveled a great distance to get here. The dream of your life has been dreamed from eternity. You belong within a great embrace that urges you to have the courage to honor the immensity that sleeps in your heart. When you learn to listen to and trust the wisdom of your soul’s longing, you will awaken to the invitation of graced belonging that inhabits the generous depths of your destiny. You will become aware of the miracle of presence within and around you. 
    – John O’Donohue 
   
    

  

 Like this ocean 
Needs the moon 

Like my coffee 

Needs the cream 

Like my music 

Bleeds dark blue 

So do I need you 
Like the body 

Water craves 

Like the frugal 

Money save 

Like the artist 

Must create 

So do I need you 
I need you 

like breathe 

Like food 

Like rain 

I need you 

Right now 

And every day 

Like the waves 

Must kiss the shore 

So do I need you 

Always 

So do I need you 

🔹

AL

 

  

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photos found at www.pinterest.com 

  

at the river  

  
The mouth of the river may be beautiful. 

It doesn’t remember the womb of its beginning. 

It doesn’t look back to where it’s been 

or wonder who ahead of it polished the rough stones. 
It is following the way 

in its fullness, 

now like satin, 

now cresting, 

waters meeting, kindred 

to travel gathered together, 

all knowing it flows 

one way, shining or in shadows. 

And me, the animal 

I ride wants to drive forward, 

its longing not always my own, 

overrunning its banks and bounds, 

edgeless, spilling along the way 
because, as I forget, 

it knows everything 

is before it. 

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Journey by Linda Hogan

   

It’s a beautiful, perfect day 

Warm, with a shadow of cool 

makes me know fall is coming 

I do love me some October 

I drove to Rocky Hill

to sing

spent way too much money 

on not much of anything 

coffee

filling up with gas 

ordered a book for 46$ 

from Chenè in Africa, 

Re-Authoring the World:

story narrative 

changing our perceptions 

changing our world 

things are changing for me 

it is time for me to begin again 

time for readjusting the flow 

time to take another step 

time to make my choices 

from a place of strength 

from a place of determination 

Freedom belongs to those who use it 

🔹

AL

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you think you have time…

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listen to Amy Grant & Vince Gill sing House of Love

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

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Nothing has to happen immediately, this minute, or right now. It’s okay to pause for just a moment. Just take a breath. Then go quietly inside. Ask Life Itself to lead you to your best outcome. There’s nothing you have to do, really, except get out of your own way. — Neale Donald Walsch

have some fun! xo

  
  
There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’. Always better, and more fun, together! 

Listen to Jack Johnson sing Banana Pancakes 

🍌

photos found on facebook

do or do not

 

Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive and express what we really are. 

– Miguel Angel Ruiz

   Being present lets us experience each moment in our lives in a way that cannot be fully lived through memory or fantasy.

It can be easy for us to walk through the world and our lives without really being present. While dwelling on the past and living for the future are common pastimes, it is physically impossible to live anywhere but the present moment. We cannot step out our front door and take a left turn to May of last year, any more than we can take a right turn to December 2010. Nevertheless, we can easily miss the future we are waiting for as it becomes the now we are too busy to pay attention to. We then spend the rest of our time playing “catch up” to the moment that we just let pass by. During moments like these, it is important to remember that there is only Now. 

In order to feel more at home in the present moment, it is important to try to stay aware, open, and receptive. Being in the present moment requires our full attention so that we are fully awake to experience it. When we are fully present, our minds do not wander. We are focused on what is going on right now, rather than thinking about what just happened or worrying about what is going to happen next. Being present lets us experience each moment in our lives in a way that cannot be fully lived through memory or fantasy. 

When we begin to corral our attention into the present moment, it can be almost overwhelming to be here. There is a state of stillness that has to happen that can take some getting used to, and the mind chatter that so often gets us into our heads and out of the present moment doesn’t have as much to do. We may feel a lack of control because we aren’t busy planning our next move, assessing our current situation, or anticipating the future. Instead, being present requires that we be flexible, creative, attentive, and spontaneous. Each present moment is completely new, and nothing like it has happened or will ever happen again. As you move through your day, remember to stay present in each moment. In doing so, you will live your life without having to wait for the future or yearn for the past. Life happens to us when we happen to life in the Now. 

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Daily Om

There is Only Now

Fresh and Unfixed

by Madisyn Taylor

   
THE SAFE PATH IS NOT ACTUALLY SAFE. Because what you might lose on the safe path is quite simply: everything. Everything that matters. Your individual essence, your treasure, your vitality, your purpose, your SELF. And that’s the most dangerous thing that can happen to you.

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From Elizabeth Gilbert

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photos found on facebook

how do we ever ‘win’ in this world?

  
Do not hesitate to love and to love deeply. You might be afraid of the pain that deep love can cause. When those you love deeply reject you, leave you, or die, your heart will be broken. But that should not hold you back from loving deeply. The pain that comes from deep love makes your love even more fruitful. It is like a plow that breaks the ground to allow the seed to take root and grow into a strong plant.

   #HenriNouwen THE INNER VOICE OF LOVE

http://wp.henrinouwen.org/rgroup_blog/

  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 our indication of sincerity: in a love relationship, in a 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 inescapable; yet we use the word 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 also 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…
David Whyte

 

 Live today. Remove all blame from your vocabulary. Catch yourself when you find yourself using your past history as a reason for your failure to act today, and instead say, “I am free now to detach myself from what used to be”. – Dr Wayne Dyer

what is being responsible, truly?

what horrors do we shackle ourselves to in the name of responsibility?

how do we break the chains of control

of manipulation

of tradition

of condition

of religion?

and follow the the truth of our hearts 

of being in control 

of only our own lives

of our own destinies

of our souls true callings?

this is not about shirking our responsibility 

or being selfish

or leaving people in the lurch  

this is about coming from a place within

of being

of awareness

of beloved

of freedom

of disciplined action

seeing below the lying distractions so ready to keep us deluded

then allowing all things to flow from us 

to the ones we love

it’s the only way to truly live responsibly

in fact, it’s the only way to truly live

🔹

AL

  
photos found on facebook

letting go is a practice…keep practicing…  

 I very keenly realise the dangers of hanging on too long for what might not come in the end.

   – C. S. Lewis 
Put Your Records On by Corrine Bailey Rae

Three little birds sat on my window.

And they told me I don’t need to worry.

Summer came like cinnamon

So sweet,

Little girls double-dutch on the concrete.

Maybe sometimes we’ve got it wrong, but it’s alright

The more things seem to change, the more they stay the same

Oh, don’t you hesitate.

Go put your records on, tell me your favourite song

You go ahead, let your hair down

Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,

Just go ahead, let your hair down.

You’re gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.

Blue as the sky, sunburnt and lonely,

Sipping tea in a bar by the roadside,

(just relax, just relax)

Don’t you let those other ones fool you,

Got to love that afro hair do.

Maybe sometimes we feel afraid, but it’s alright

The more you stay the same, the more things seem to change.

Don’t you think it’s strange?

Go put your records on, tell me your favourite song

You go ahead, let your hair down

Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,

Just go ahead, let your hair down.

You’re gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.

‘Twas more than I could take, pity for pity’s sake

Some nights kept me awake, I thought that I was stronger

When you gonna realise, that you don’t even have to try any longer?

Do what you want to.

Go put your records on, tell me your favourite song

You go ahead, let your hair down

Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,

Just go ahead, let your hair down.

Go put your records on, tell me your favourite song

You go ahead, let your hair down

Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,

Just go ahead, let your hair down.
Oh, you’re gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow

 

    

Photos found at www.pinterest.com 

Listen to Amos Lee sing Keep it Loose, Keep it Tight 

love just is…there is no understanding why 

  
A man asked him, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments…” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. 

Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the realm of God!” And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the realm of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

                  —Mark 10.17-27

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We continually have to resist the belief that there’s something we have to do to “be saved.” We think there are “good” people (the man thought Jesus was one) and others who are less so. We believe our salvation is up to us. Clearly the disciples think so. Were that true, of course it would be impossible. But it’s up to God. And God has already “saved” us.

Take note that Jesus looks at the man and loves him. The man does not need to do anything for Jesus to love him; he already does. He responds to the man not with requirements but with love. Because that’s his point. There is no requirement. God already loves us. We are already saved. There is no salvation beyond God’s love; God’s love is not insufficient for our eternal joy. All we need to be “saved” from is our own distrust. The man seems to have great possessions but “lacks one thing.” Jesus looks on him in his poverty and sets him free: let go of what you can measure and what you can lose—either riches or goodness—and grasp only what is infinite, what is already yours. 

Meditate on this infinite love of God. It is yours, now. It surrounds you, fills you, gives you every breath. You can’t deserve it more or less. It is simply here. Even as you ask and wonder, maybe even doubt, God looks at you with love. God’s delight is not up to you. Let this light break in, and become you.

__________________ 

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

  

As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.

~ Rumi

 

Photos found at www.pinterest.com 

a little help from our friends 

   
photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT

listen to Jack Johnson sing Upside Down http://youtu.be/dqUdI4AIDF0

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If you stand at the edge of the forest 

and stare into it 

every tree at the edge will blow a little extra 

oxygen toward you 
It has been proven 

Leaves have admitted it 
The pines I have known 

have been especially candid 
One said 

that all breath in this world 

is roped together 
that breathing is 

the most ancient language

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Ancient Language by Hannah Stephenson

  A bright gold canary diamond 

In the middle of a row of emeralds 

Light sparkles on brilliant color 

Natures jewels glimmering in sunlight 

Trees can’t help but be happy with who they are. 

Beloved 

Comfortable 

Extravagantly, audaciously beautiful 

Spectacularly themselves 

Totally at home where they’re planted 

Reaching for the sky 

Content to be rooted and grounded 

Letting their leaves come and go 

As they see fit 

watching all the dancing 

as seasons come and go. 

Knowing there will always be abundance 

Giving us life giving oxygen with, 

not even a whisper, 

of quid pro quo 

jealousy, 

or manipulation. 

Trees are magnificent. 

I can’t help but admire 

their character and integrity 

Their deep wisdom and acceptance of life. 

Their mystery and playfulness. 

Their understanding and gracious giving hearts. 

Even driving down the busiest of highways during rush hour 

becomes a beautiful experience 

when you spend the moments of the stop-n-go

looking out your car window 

at the show being put on 

right next to the roadway

🔹

AL

  
  

other photos found @ www.pinterest.com 

free fall

 

 Only when you are madly in love
    can your heart rest,
only asking the scariest questions

         are you at peace.
Only when you have lain in your grave

         are you truly alive,
only broken open

         are you truly whole.
Only on the invisible hand

         can you stand safely,
only on the unpredictable grace of God

       can you surely rely.

It is only in the raging sea

        you are safe,
only in the deep end

        you cannot be drowned.

______________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

  
 

   

  

   
 photos at www.pinterest.com 

 

a friend loves at all times 

How will you know your real friends? Pain is as dear to them as life. A friend is like gold. Trouble is like fire. Pure gold delights in the fire.        ~ Rumi

  
And a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain. 

And he said: 

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses 

       your understanding. 

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its 

       heart may stand in the sun, so must you know 

       pain. 

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily 

       miracles of your life, your pain would not seem 

       less wondrous than your joy; 

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, 

       even as you have always accepted the seasons

       that pass over your fields. 

And you would watch with serenity through the 

       winters of your grief. 
Much of your pain is self-chosen, 

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within 

       you heals your sick self. 

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy 

       in silence and tranquility: 

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by 

       the tender hand of the Unseen, 

And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has 

       been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has

       moistened with His own sacred tears. 

   – Kahlil Gibran: On Pain

   

 JOY

is a form of deep intentionality and self forgetting, the bodily alchemy of what lies inside us in communion with what formally seemed outside, but is now neither, but become a living frontier, a voice speaking between us and the world: dance, laughter, affection, skin touching skin, song, music in the kitchen: the sheer beauty of the world inhabited as an edge between what we previously thought was us and what we thought was other than us. 

Joy can be a practiced achievement not just the unlooked for passing act of grace arriving out of nowhere, joy is a measure of our relationship to death and our living with death, joy is the act of giving ourselves away, joy is practiced generosity. If joy is a deep form of love, it is also the raw engagement with the passing seasonality of existence, the fleeting presence of those we love going in and out of our lives, faces, voices, memory, aromas of the first spring day or a wood fire in winter, the last breath of a dying parent as they create that rare, raw, beautiful frontier between loving presence and a new and blossoming absence. 

To feel a full untrammeled joy is to walk through the doorway of fear, the dropping away of the anxious worried self felt itself like a death itself, a disappearance, a giving away, seen in the laughter of friendship, the vulnerability of happiness felt suddenly as a strength, a solace and a source, the claiming of our place in the living conversation, the sheer privilege of being in the presence of a mountain, a sky or a familiar face – I am here and you are here and together we make a world.

   – Joy by David Whyte

  
 

Listen to Andrew Gold sing Thank You for being a Friend http://youtu.be/Jzrq52qaXZI

photos found atwww.pinterest.com
  

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