life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Life”

03 Jul 2016

return to me   


The time will come 

 when, with elation 

 you will greet yourself arriving 

 at your own door, in your own mirror 

 and each will smile at the other’s welcome, 
and say, sit here. Eat. 

 You will love again the stranger who was your self.

 Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 

 to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 
all your life, whom you ignored 

 for another, who knows you by heart. 

 Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 
the photographs, the desperate notes, 

 peel your own image from the mirror. 

 Sit. Feast on your life. 

💞

Love After Love by Derek Walcott


     I want to make a poem
that slips into the heart stream 
quietly, with no great splash
just a graceful entry, 
with minimal ripples
which plunges deeply upon entering
and allows the mud to settle gracefully around it. 
I want to make a poem
which allows the heart to trust,
to open,
to flower in it’s own time
knowing, for sure,
   it is dependable,
steady,
Words written to last a lifetime,
through the fiercest storms,
    though the world burn,
and the mountains crumble. 
Words of love
    so beautiful 
           so eternal 
they come to life
   each time they are read,
    or spoken,
and anyone who dares to read the poem I make
cannot help but
   find within themselves  
clouds of peace
   wrapped up in thick blankets of joy 
  and will forever know for sure 
    they are 
          beloved
💞
AL 

I smiled at myself 

in the mirror this morning

said, ‘good morning’ 

to the crazy haired girl

looking at me with happy eyes

I make happy coffee 

and smile as the heaven-brew

hits morning tastebuds 

I have many thoughts this morning

plans and inspiration 

floating through

I smile at the fresh pink fuzz

on the backyard tree

at the birds hopping through grass

at the dirty pig statue

looking so perfectly thrilled

To be so dirty

I believe I will live this quote today:

The only thing that ultimately matters is to eat an ice cream

cone, play a slide trombone, plant a small tree, good God, now

you’re free.

– Ray Manzarek 

Hmmm wonder where I’ll find that trombone?

💃🏻

AL


Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, beloved, Choice, connection, courage, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, Freedom, friendship, healing, Hope, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery | Leave a comment
02 Jul 2016

page turner   


A hill or edge or precipice,

horizon out and mystery

above, beneath, within.
Departure, limen: driveway,

pier, or gate, or aisle,

a road; and a goodbye.
A parting; sorrow, mostly

masked, and wonder.

Fear of what is next.
Riven wide enough for light,

made empty space enough 

for pouring in of this:
a breathing— listen— low,

a hope, a vision, passion, 

story told and still unfolding,
woven in your bones and 

pouring through your veins,

and every other soul.
In all those faces, rapt

or gaping, still unknowing,

God has set a flame
not yet but soon to burst,

to shine, to speak. That’s why

Christ came, and came again: 
to breathe it back into us. All

the love of God is there, now,

in your hands, your wanting hands.
The space awaits. The silence 

breathes. The road an arm, a hand.

Begin. 

__________________  

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net


Strange to realize 

on our very worst day of life

someone else is having their very best. 

Every death 

is countered with birth. 

Every grieving tear 

with belly laughter.

On the night we see the stars fall

the sun is rising on the other side of the world. 

The human spirit cannot be conquered

we rise again with each fall,

else we do not rise at all,

and come to the end,

which is another new beginning. 

Tides come in

as tides go out. 

With every broken heart

there is an answering new moment of love. 

For every first kiss 

a final slamming of the door – 

figuratively or literally. 

For every threshold we cross

we must cross again in a new moment. 

We each have moments of glory 

moments of defeat. 

Worry is the paper tiger 

which strips our moments of joy. 

Illusions of control hide behind our eyes

always revealed to be a waste of our precious resources. 

There is a time for every season. 

In all we are to bring the sacrifice of praise. 

It is the amazing hat-trick to the healing of our wounds 

that in every single circumstance 

we stand in the truth of that moment

and we give thanks,

or curse the darkness. 

Our choices lead us ever onward

toward the life

we will leave behind,

life happens while we make plans,

all we have slips daily through our hands. 

What will we do with your extraordinary, astonishing gift?

🖐🏼

AL


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

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, connection, courage, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, inspiration, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, Passion, Purpose, Reality | Leave a comment
01 Jul 2016

stillpoint


Psalm of the Threshold
Eternal One, I praise you on this threshold;

         the door opening is to you.

Under your eye I pack my belongings;

         in your arms I move to a new place.
By your Spirit guide my hand

         to take only what you give me

         and leave the rest;

to bring with me what is truly need

         and leave behind what is unneeded.

Give me faith to trust 

         what cannot be left behind,

and to release what I thought was part of me

         but was only the leaves of a season.

Give me grace to say goodbye

         even to myself

and turn and welcome the new day,

         even in my own soul.
God of time and story,

         may I ever dwell on thresholds,

between then and not yet,

         in the present, moving.

By your grace open doors;

         by your grace lead me through them.

For every door is your eye

         and every path is the palm of your hand.

__________________ 

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

so I stand at the threshold 

of everything new

looking for the key

to the open front door

I stand at the edge 

of all that I am

wanting what could be

instead of what is

afraid of not knowing

yet knowing I know

cause I’ll never walk alone

The best is yet to come

🚪

AL


I will not die an unlived life. 

I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.

I choose to inhabit my days, 

to allow my living to open me, 

to make me less afraid, 

more accessible, 

to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, 

a torch, 

a promise.

 I choose to risk my significance; 

to live 

so that which came to me as a seed

 goes to the next as a blossom 

and that which came to me as a blossom, 

goes on as fruit.

🍇🍎🍏🍊🌽🍒🍓🍋🍉🍑

Dawna Markova


Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, Change, Choice, connection, courage, Faith, find art at pinterest, Letting Go, Life, Miracles, mystery, soul and spirit, strength, Trust, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
30 Jun 2016

we are forces of nature    









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


“Even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me” (Psalm 139:10).

 

You look for Me. But you don’t need to look far.
Oh, trust Me. Trust Me: when I say I am with you, nothing can separate you from my love. This is true.
Come deeper.
Drink of these roots that do more than sustain. Yes, they hold you up. Yes, they let you reach high, to a new place, with Me. Yes, they give you courage, knowing you are held, knowing you will not topple. The stream that nourishes you will never run dry.
You do not do the planting in the best soil. That is for Me to do. You do not decide the weather—whether the sun will shine or rain will fall. You do not know when storms will bend your branches, the wind whipping off your leaves. You do not know when a branch will need to be cut, a root adjusted, fertilizer poured in and mixed with rich soil.
I am the one who cares for you, my love. I am the one who bends low, my hand upon you, my breath the sweet aroma of your soul.
Come, child. I take your concerns. I’ve got you.
I’ve got you.
I see you and care for you. You are growing.
You are becoming more and more yourself.
Oh, how I love to tend to you and be with you! You are the one for whom I bend low and you see Me.
I am so close.

💞

Loop

http://www.gatherministries.com/loop



photos found on Facebook/jeff brown

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Choice, connection, courage, determination, Faith, find art at pinterest, focus, force, Glory, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, Passion, power | Leave a comment
29 Jun 2016

nothing is more powerful than beauty in a wicked world…     – Amos Lee    


I asked the earth, I asked the sea and the deeps, among the living animals, and things that creep. I asked the winds that blow, I asked the heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars, and to all things that stand at the doors of my flesh…My question was the gaze I turned to them. Their answer was their beauty. 

   – St Augustine


Lovers find secret places inside this violent world
Where they make transactions with beauty. – Rumi

Close your eyes. 
Fall in love. 
Stay there. 
                       – Rumi

We live, shields up,
prepared for battle,
expecting war. 
We harden ourselves, 
with the best of intentions. 
Our best defense is protective prevarication. 
Our best offense is distracting laughter. 
Violence becomes a way of life. 
Tenderness becomes a thing we try to remove from our children 
as early as possible. 
We think we know this – 
if we can control the carnage, 
if we don’t allow our weaknesses to drag behind us
like toilet paper stuck to our shoe, 
No vulnerabilities allowed to peak out like saggy undergarments. 
No imperfections leaking out of our ears or fingertips,
we’ll win.  
We got this. 
We set life up without possibility of change,
without allowing any new circumstances to come to us…

then love comes 
with it’s un-understandable mystery 
and finds us not ready. 
Who could ever be ready for this?
then we seek places,
benches, beaches, back seats…
places to share with the other. 
unexpected moments of joy and connection 
find us at newly found secret spots
where shields are lowered,
vulnerability given,  
tenderness ruthlessly
invades the moment
and beauty is transacted. 
soul’s mingle,
hands touch. 
Life gets messy and wet. 
Car windows steam up on drizzly mornings
as love comes peeking through
working to melt stony hearts,
to return us to joyful living 
these are the moments life was made for,
two souls torn from the same clay,
loving each other for a million years and more,
suddenly find each other within the same moment,
and it takes our breath away. 

or 

we build an igloo 

and refuse the gift. 

It’s always our choice. 

❤️💔

AL





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

Posted in Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, connection, courage, Dancing, find art at pinterest, fragile, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, Passion, People, Reality | Leave a comment
28 Jun 2016

omnia vincit amor* :  love conquers all  


Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,

With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,

When first on this delightful land he spreads

His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit and flower,

Glistening with dew; fragrant the fertile earth

After soft showers, and sweet the coming on

of grateful Evening mild; the silent Night,

With this her solumn bird and hisfair Moon,

And these the gems of Heaven, their starry train;

But neither breath of morn nor rising sun

On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower

Glistening with dew, nor fragrance after shower,

Nor grateful Evening mild, nor silent Night,

With this her solumn bird, nor walk by Moon,

Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet

💔
John Milton


I’m a world away

In a thousand ways

Tossing and turning

Heat is burning

I stand and sway to the tunes I love

As the night sky fills my heart with love
And we’re looking at the same moon

Bella Luna

And she’s looking back you see

And we’re reaching for the same star

Bella Luna

In the silence can you feel me?
You’re a lifetime away

Where you need to be

Laughing and worrying

Life is swirling

I wonder, do you ever think of me?

As the lights go on in the evening sky
And we’re looking at the same moon

Bella Luna

And she’s looking back you see

And we’re singing the same songs

Bella Luna

In the wind can you hear me?
And I can’t think of you

Can you think of me?

You are there 

I am here

How it has to be
And we’re looking at the same moon,

Bella Luna

And she’s looking back you see

And we’re dancing to the moonglow

Bella Luna

In her eyes can you see me?

🌝

AL


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

Posted in Alone, attitude, awareness, beauty, beloved, connection, find art at pinterest, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, Passion, Reality | Leave a comment
27 Jun 2016

all roads  


it’s not a dead end if it takes you someplace you needed to go

           – unconditional 

There are beautiful wild forces within us.

 Let them turn the mills inside

 and fill

 sacks

 that feed even heaven.

💞

     – St. Frances of Assisi

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, beloved, Choice, connection, courage, find art at pinterest, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, Passion | Leave a comment
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
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

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