life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Life”

17 Jun 2015

adventure calling 

 

All we want is a path

just visible

in the new growth

of the forest floor.
We do not require

a thread of cairns

to mark the route.                                                         

Leave it to us  

                                                        

to find our way across

the swollen stream

to get our feet wet

if we must, to
blow past the bend 

in the switchback

misread the map

become aware
too late that we 

are lost, to move 

this way and that

kneel in the dirt
to sit at last cross-

legged in the dusk 

while the stars emerge

one by one each one

  

a blessing, to sleep

beneath those stars

and in the first light

find our way back
or forward it won’t

matter because we

will have found it

and can call it ours

🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅

Call It Ours by Rick Kempa

   

  Listen to Journey sing Don’t Stop Believin’ http://youtu.be/KCy7lLQwToI

🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾

photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513

 

Posted in Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Choice, courage, find art at pinterest, Letting Go, Life, Love, Trust, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
16 Jun 2015

Note to Self:   

 
Inspiration from

 my son, Brandon (he’s made my mamma-heart very happy this morning)…LISTEN to Paul Baribeau sing Ten Things! http://youtu.be/9X_o_BAUJ-c 

 
 

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, beloved, Blessing, Choice, connection, courage, create, Dancing, determination, do, Dreams, education, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Gratitude, Growth, healing, home, Joy, Letting Go, Life, Love, Mother, power, Uncategorized, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
15 Jun 2015

hearing

  

Now I understand that there are two melodies playing,

one below the other, one easier to hear, the other
lower, steady, perhaps more faithful for being less heard

yet always present.
When all other things seem lively and real,

this one fades. Yet the notes of it
touch as gently as fingertips, as the sound

of the names laid over each child at birth.
I want to stay in that music without striving or cover.

If the truth of our lives is what it is playing,
the telling is so soft

that this mortal time, this irrevocable change,
becomes beautiful. I stop and stop again

to hear the second music.
I hear the children in the yard, a train, then birds.

All this is in it and will be gone. I set my ear to it as I would to a heart.

🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶

The Second Music by Annie Lighthart 

 
🎼🎼🎼🎼🎼🎼🎼🎼🎼🎼🎼🎼

In every instant, two gates.

One opens to fragrant paradise, one to hell.

Mostly we go through neither.
Mostly we nod to our neighbor,

lean down to pick up the paper,

go back into the house.
But the faint cries—ecstasy? horror?

Or did you think it the sound

of distant bees,

making only the thick honey of this good life?

 Listen to Norah Jones sing One Flight Down http://youtu.be/56RJ0AKtpv0

🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵

photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513

 

 

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, find art at pinterest, Growth, Life, music, mystery, perceptions, soul and spirit, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
12 Jun 2015

live‼️ 

 
She stopped offering excuses, justifications, explanations.

She said yes or no with her whole being,

Letting her heart and gut guide her

Knowing neither were infallible

Claiming her right to change her choice 

When new information- inner or outer- arose.

There were consequences. 

There always are. 

She let herself learn, flourish,

Blaze like the sun, 

And rest in the sweet, cool darkness. 

She offered what she could to her people,

She followed the blood red thread of her own life. 

~Oriah 

‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

Listen to Maroon 5 Maps http://youtu.be/NmugSMBh_iI    


  

Listen to Van the Man sing Crazy Love http://youtu.be/oeE7BOLB8Jc 

Photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513

Posted in attitude, awareness, courage, find art at pinterest, Life, Love, Relationships, soul and spirit, Trust, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
11 Jun 2015

so much potential…(and I quote)

  

  
  
  

 “One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.” ~Maya Angelou
 Listen to Eric Clapton sing Let it Grow http://youtu.be/V069wWEnCys

💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣

photo sources at www.pinterest.com/al513

   

 

 
 

 

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, courage, create, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, grace, Letting Go, Life, Love, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
10 Jun 2015

bullfrogs and writing poems

  There are no creatures you cannot love.
A frog calling at God

From the moon-filled ditch

As you stand on the country road in the June night.

The sound is enough to make the stars weep

With happiness.

In the morning the landscape green

Is lifted off the ground by the scent of grass.

The day is carried across its hours

Without any effort by the shining insects

That are living their secret lives.

The space between the prairie horizons

Makes us ache with its beauty.

Cottonwood leaves click in an ancient tongue

To the farthest cold dark in the universe.

The cottonwood also talks to you

Of breeze and speckled sunlight.

You are at home in these

great empty places

along with red-wing blackbirds and sloughs.

You are comfortable in this spot

so full of grace and being

that it sparkles like jewels

spilled on water. 

🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸

From a Country Overlooked by Tom Hennen

 

 Some days the words flow
all day

pouring

smooth and beautiful

words dancing

in streams 

like fish in a pond

jumping in the sun

while bullfrogs 

talk –

their amazing 

deep bass voices

croaking conversations 

vibrating through the air

and grasshoppers 

scrape their legs 

like bows on violin strings

in that cool raspy sound

free form jazz

only they can make. 

these are sounds 

that define summer

for all of us 

southern girls and boys

who grew up in the country

where our entertainment 

was driving through town 

waving to each other

playing country music 

or Lynyrd Skynyrd

loud 

on truck radios

while coke-a-cola

and kick-a-boo joy juice

keeps us cool 

as we hold hands

and sneak kisses

yes, some days

words flow like a 

hot summer night

in the south

and some days

all the words fly north

and I am bare naked bones

searching 

bereft 

trying to light 

wild fires in wet fields

trees with bare branches 

scrape the grey sky

nothing is beautiful

no birds sing

the flow 

is frozen 

in time

I sit 

like a Bronte novel heroine

in my moldy wedding dress

alone

in silence

waiting

for my lover

to return to me

AL 🐸

 

 Listen to Ella & Louis sing Summetime http://youtu.be/lnXLVTi_m_M
🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸

photo sources found at www.pinterest.com

 

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Change, Choice, courage, create, dark, Death, find art at pinterest, Life, Love, mystery, nature, Poetry, Seasons, Trust, words, Writing, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
09 Jun 2015

Genius is only one percent cleverness and ninety-nine percent a very long endurance. Keep going and never, ever give up.         – Ann Voskamp 

 

And it begins to happen and nothing could be truer than what Pascal said: “Instead of complaining that God had hidden himself, you will give Him thanks for having revealed so much of Himself.”
The darkness ebbs.
The shadows dim –
and all the trees and all the thankful, they ignite, seeing and believing the true colours of now. – Ann Voskamp

  

How can we be so blinded 

by what we say we want 

that we fail to see what we have

Closing our hands

Closing our hearts

Closing our eyes to what we already have

It’s tattooed all over the world

Engraved into our hands 

Sculpted, within us as our heart. 

Ringing as a clear bell,

the soul within us sounds continually. 

We refuse to see. 

We become angry, 

because it’s not about us. 

God does not obey our wishes,

Fails to bow to our immature and selfish demands

Live up to our ego-centric standards. 

We aim so low, puffed up in pride, 

Camouflaged by our speaking lies of our love

Love by our standards is always a rip-off,

built on selfishness. 

Built on, I want. 

Our words, sounding brass

Our tongues, full of venom

Our arms 

Our words, are as empty as our love 

Words can be weapons 

used in machine gun fashion 

to kill those in our line of fire,

usually those we live with,

claim to love most,

bleed the loudest red. 

Joy is different than fleeting laughter. 

Peace only comes through recognition of our place and repentance,

Opening closed fists. 

Softening hard hearts. 

Seeing with new vision. 

Cleaning the green off the leaves

to become 

our true colors of holy. 

Our true songs of glory. 

Our words finally carry real truth. 

Thankful awareness changes 

everything,

Only death can bring in next years harvest. 

We are all connected.

We are all in season. 

AL

  

Listen to the Beatles sing Love is All You Need http://youtu.be/ydfH7iuLR0I

💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞

Photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513 

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Change, Choice, commitment, courage, determination, Life, Love, nature, Seasons, Trust, truth, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
08 Jun 2015

That which is – is only grace. There is nothing else.       – Ramana Maharshi 

  

Your prayers are not little,

         they are the cries of God.
Your power is not slight,

         it is the sun in your heart.
Your path is not through a city of strangers,

          but through heaven. 
You are walking neither on air nor earth

         but the hands of angels. 
God is not far off,

         but within.
You are not alone,

         but surrounded by love. 
This world is the bread,

         this moment the chalice.
This visible world is a window

         into the glorious world within it. 
This is not the last chapter.

         There is more. 
__________________  

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

   
     

Listen to Seal sing I’m Alive http://youtu.be/RwwnxpBxiRo

⌛️⌛️⌛️⌛️⌛️⌛️⌛️⌛️⌛️

photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513

 
 

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, beloved, find art at pinterest, grace, Letting Go, Life, Love | Leave a comment
07 Jun 2015

go quietly

  
  

 Listen to Chris Tomlin sing Take My Life http://youtu.be/agROj9nTQP4

 

Posted in awareness, beauty, beloved, find art at pinterest, intimacy, Life, Love, mystery, Relationships, soul and spirit, strength, Trust, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
05 Jun 2015

shiny things

 when Whitman wrote, “I sing the body electric”
I know what he

meant

I know what he

wanted:
to be completely alive every moment

in spite of the inevitable.
we can’t cheat death but we can make it

work so hard

that when it does take

us
it will have known a victory just as

perfect as

ours.

🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋

a song with no end by Charles Bukowski

 
Listen to Katy Perry sing Firework http://youtu.be/QGJuMBdaqIw 

 

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, courage, determination, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, Life, Passion, soul and spirit, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

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