Passion | life: acoustic & amplified

Archive for the category “Passion”

08 Feb 2016

do or do not….there is no try – Yoda

I want to be the song, a poem

I don’t want to play the record

Perch behind the lens

Hold the pen.

I want to be the song

Live the photo

Experience the novel.

Enough interpreting my existence.

Enough searching for the symbol, the reflection, the meaning.

I am resonant, alive, pulsing

One.

Treble and bass.

Light and shadows.

Beginnings and endings.

All of it.

I want to be the song.

Beating, polyrhythmic, harmonious.

The lyrics my prayers.

I want to live the photo.

Still, present, vibrant.

The image my essence.

I want to experience the novel.

Aching, poignant, truth.

The plot my story.

I want to be alive.

Color, beauty, heart-break.

Engaged, awake, heart-felt.

In awe.

Longing.

Loving.

💞
Spread the Love

Eloiza Jorge

💞

click on the photo below to go to Eloiza’s blog Deepening Wisdom

https://deepeningwisdom.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/i-want-to-be-alive/img_1833/

There comes a time when nothing is meaningful except surrendering to Love. Do It!
💞

– Rumi

Your great mistake is to act the drama

as if you were alone. As if life

were a progressive and cunning crime

with no witness to the tiny hidden transgressions.

To feel abandoned is to deny

the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,

even you, at times, have felt the grand array;

the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding

out your solo voice. You must note

the way the soap dish enables you,

or the window latch grants you freedom.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

The stairs are your mentor of things

to come, the doors have always been there

to frighten you and invite you,

and the tiny speaker in the phone

is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease

into the conversation. The kettle is singing

even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

have left their arrogant aloofness and

seen the good in you at last. All the birds

and creatures of the world are unutterably

themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

Everything is Waiting for You
…

EVERYTHING IS WAITING FOR YOU by David Whyte

Excuse me while I kiss the sky.
Pardon me while I hug the moon.

Forgive me while I dance with the ocean.

Give me a minute while I laugh with the stars.

Hold your horses while I sing to the angels.

Patience, my old friend, while I make love to the world.

Get some rest while I fly the skies with the eagles.

Count some sheep while I paint a masterpiece with Mother Nature.

Then…

Come lay down beside me and hold me.

caress my skin with lovers hands.

whisper secrets my soul longs to hear.

sing to me softly.

kiss me like the butterflies.

while I love you forever

and ever,

we fall asleep together

every night,

and I wake to see the face I love every morning.

Sweet dreams, my love.

good night.

🌙

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

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, be, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Choice, connection, Dreams, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Glory, healing, inspiration, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, music, mystery, Passion, People, perceptions, Purpose, Reality | Leave a comment

02 Feb 2016

together in a hopeful world

Yesterday there was a facebook post from Jen Lemen over at Hopeful World http://hopefulworld.org (she’s one of my most admired people on the planet) telling me that it was a half-way-between-solstice moment and she would be burning a fire in celebration and prayer. If anyone wanted to be part…just say ‘yes’ and she would bring us! I said, ‘Yes, please’ as quickly as I could type it!!!
And so, last night, while I was sleeping…Jen Lemen was doing something so amazing, I get chill bumps every time I think about it!!! She was holding me, and mine, in that space between.

Yes, there was INTENTION, there was fire, there was singing, there was celebrating and grieving, there was prayer for the world, for everyone who requested it…and, Holy Batman, Batman, there was prayer for ME and all I hold within and without me.
What a gift! Beauty and all she is! Powerful and humbling! Encouraging and valuing! I feel it all this morning and I say, Thank you, Jen! Thank you, more than I can say! I am so blessed by you and your work!! 💞

I woke up to these words from Jen this morning:

Writing blessings. Saying prayers. May you be happy and peaceful. May no harm come to you. May no difficulty come to you. May you be deeply blessed. May you take care of anyone and everything smaller and sweeter than you are. May you surrender your power to make space for a forgotten voice. May you notice the earth and how she moves and breathes. May you say yes when you’re called and stay quietly beside until the time is right. May you become love and be love and find love and hope for more love, when others say it doesn’t matter or all hope is gone. #pathofprayerandpleasure #urbanfamily #bliss #mysticlife #blessings #imbolc #brigid #celticspring

🙏🏻

– Jen Lemen @ Hopeful World

http://hopefulworld.org

The poet gives you a little stone to stand on,

a ledge, a moment of the world or your own mind

to notice, to ground yourself in,

and from there to leap
maybe to another stone, a similar noticing,

maybe to another star, the light you are made of,

or a beauty pouring itself into you,

or maybe just leap all the way to God.
When you are praying

the smallest thing

can be what you stand on,

can be your prayer.
Any time, from even a single twig

you can leap

and wherever you land will be God.

The leaping is God.
__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

Follow and support Jen Lemen @

http://hopefulworld.org

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

Posted in action, Adventure, Alone, attitude, awareness, beauty, beloved, big, Blessing, Choice, connection, dark, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Glory, grace, Gratitude, Grieving, Happiness, Hope, inspiration, Letting Go, Life, light, Love, mystery, Passion, Prayer, receiving, Reflection, Relationships, soul and spirit, strength, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

26 Jan 2016

fall down 7 times, get up 8

There is a path we all walk in life. All the places we go when the path gets too rocky and exhausting and brutal and beautiful are dead-end detours. If you take these detours you are not bad, but you are wasting your time and energy.

The path looks like this:
Come back to the path.

There’s no other way.

You will never find your perfect life “balance” on the path for the same reason you will never find a unicorn on the path – because these things don’t exist. Forget unicorns and balance. If you were perfectly balanced, you’d never have to take anyone’s hand to steady yourself, and that would be a tragedy.

There is no solid ground on the path — so don’t hold your breath till you find it. Breathe deeply and keep moving forward awkwardly. You can make it down the whole path imbalanced and flailing. When you fall, give thanks for the opportunity to rest. While you’re down, send love to every other path walker who’s down with you at that moment.

Then get back up.

Or crawl. Crawling is encouraged and respected. Path running is fine, but crawling is much better. Crawlers travel with their eyes close to the ground — so they never miss an inch of the beautiful, rocky path. Crawlers get less glory but learn the most about the path’s terrain.

And know your fellow travelers are both your teachers and students. Your relationships with them will be the hardest part of path walking. To avoid humbling oneself into the role of student and having the courage to position oneself into the role of teacher — many try to walk the path alone.

But the path was not designed for solo treks.

The path was designed to teach Love. Whenever you introduce your true self to a fellow path traveler and listen and speak and learn and stay with her for a while – that is called Love. Walking with and staying with messy fellow path travelers for any length of time is Love. Love is the most brutal and beautiful part of path traveling. Participate. Learn from and teach every path traveler you encounter. Exchanging love with fellow path travelers is how we gather the wisdom and strength we’ll need to overcome the next obstacle on our path.

Note: You do not teach by teaching — you teach by loving. Be humble and courageous.

You always have enough strength.

And courage and wisdom. You always have exactly what you need for your daily trek. Sometimes you won’t believe this, because you will encounter stretches of the path that are treacherous and terrifying, but if you give up in the middle of those stretches — if you sit down permanently in them — then you have to live there. Don’t live in the dark, scary parts. Trust and keep moving. There will be a clearing soon and you will feel the warm sun again.

The One who created your path is outside of time, so your life is an epic movie that has already been scripted. So don’t plan or worry — your job is to trust your path and participate fully and notice as much as you possibly can and keep on moving.

But don’t become proud or ashamed.

Don’t become proud that you are further along than many travelers or ashamed that you are far behind others. Your position on the path relative to other travelers has nothing to do with your strength or stamina or wisdom or cunning. We are all in different places because we all have different entry points to the path.

Where you are and where everyone else is along the path is none of your concern or business.

Let that go.

You are exactly where you are supposed to be, always, and so is everyone else. The portion of the path you wake up to today was written for you.
Everyone is exactly where he or she is supposed to be. You are not your own or anyone else’s path-planner. You are just a traveler. You just keep moving. Trust the Path. Follow in the footsteps of a billion other mighty travelers who have walked and run and crawled the path before you.

Fear not. And carry on, warrior.

🛤

you’re on by Glennon Doyle Melton

on Donald Miller StoryLine Blog http://storylineblog.com/2016/01/26/make-the-most-of-the-path-youre-on/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=facebook_page&utm_medium=Donald%20Miller&utm_content=Make%20the%20Most%20of%20the%20Path%20You’re%20On

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

Posted in Adventure, attitude, awareness, balance, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, compassion, confidence, connection, courage, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Gratitude, Growth, Habits, inspiration, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, nature, Passion, soul and spirit, strength, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

25 Jan 2016

loving the oh-so not-so ordinary

This day is not ordinary. This day may be one of quiet or chaos, challenge or rest. But no moment is ordinary. It may be familiar. It may be predictable. It may make you frustrated and angry, discouraged and sad. It may be one where you see hope, hope all around. It may be the day you see deeper, go further, pursue a new place you’ve never traveled before.

I hold you in what you see as ordinary. I look ahead and stay here with you, in this moment.

Let me unfold it for you.

There is a point where you can no longer see. There is a point where there are obstacles and there is nothing to do but wait on Me, look to Me, desire for Me to take hold of all control and guide you.
Where I guide you, where I am with you, is not the place of ordinary.

There are the regular tasks to get done, the job to do, the responsibilities to complete. It may involve doing the same thing day after day, for a while, and another while.
But still, where I am is not ordinary.

Here—here I am, with you. The intake of your breath, the shape of your skin, the ideas taking place in your mind, the beat of your heart. You are a wonder, a beauty, and this day, with all I’ve made, can never be an ordinary day.

Let Me give you new eyes to see so you don’t miss the possibilities around you that I see. Let Me give you new eyes to see so you don’t get discouraged and mistake wonder for ordinary. Let me show you how what you think is mundane may be an opportunity to be with Me in a new way.
I am always new and always the same. You can always count on Me. But I never stop wanting you to see the hidden wonder in this not-so-ordinary day.

🎭

Loop

http://loop.gatherministries.com/loop-1/?utm_source=Loop+Devotional&utm_campaign=cee6d83e4e-Loop_85_This_Not_So_Ordinary_Day12_16_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a7b9cec9e0-cee6d83e4e-100590649

Rama Ink blog!! ❤️ click title below to visit!!!

https://ramaink.wordpress.com/2016/01/25/cross-roads/#like-2971

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

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Choice, determination, Faith, find art at pinterest, grace, inspiration, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, music, mystery, Passion, Patience, Peace, People, Reality | Leave a comment

22 Jan 2016

everyday hero

Quote of the Day: Virtue
Next to the seven deadly sins, the seven cardinal virtues are apt to look pale and unenterprising, but appearances are notoriously untrustworthy.
Prudence and temperance, taken separately, may not be apt to get you to your feet cheering, but when they go together, as they almost always do, that’s a different matter. The chain smoker or the junkie, for instance, who exemplifies both by managing to kick the habit, can very well have you throwing your hat in the air, especially if it happens to be somebody whom for personal reasons you’d like to have around a few years longer. And the courage involved isn’t likely to leave you cold either. Often it’s the habit kicker’s variety that seems the most courageous.
If you think of justice as sitting blindfolded with a scale in her hand, you may have to stifle a yawn, but if you think of a black judge acquitting a white racist of a false murder charge, it can give you gooseflesh.
The faith of a child taking your hand in the night is as moving as the faith of Mother Teresa among the untouchables, or Bernadette facing the skeptics at Lourdes, or Abraham, age seventy-five, packing up his bags for the Promised Land. And hope is the glimmer on the horizon that keeps faith plugging forward, of course, the wings that keep it more or less in the air.
Maybe it’s only love that turns things around and makes the seven deadly sins be the ones to look pale and unenterprising for a change. Greed, gluttony, lust, envy, and pride are no more than sad efforts to fill the empty place where love belongs, and anger and sloth just two things that may happen when you find that not even all seven of them at their deadliest ever can.

⚜

~ Frederick Bruechner originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words

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

Posted in action, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, commitment, connection, determination, Dreams, find art at pinterest, forgiveness, Freedom, Growth, Habits, Happiness, healing, Hope, Imagine, Impossible, inspiration, Joy, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, Passion, Patience, Peace, power | Leave a comment

16 Jan 2016

bring us peace

Oh time,
Oh love,

Oh life,

awaken us all

to hear,

to see,

to be aware

shake our comfort zones

let us scream

let us cry

let us shout

let us waste no more of our living

help us to choose wisely

help us to live passionately

help us to love mercy, to establish justice, to inhabit grace

keep us humble

keep us growing

keep us connected

knowing our own valve, as well as the value of every other

Oh God of love

Oh God of life

Oh God of joy

shake us now with heavenly thunder,

crack open our hearts and bring us peace

❤️

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

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Dreams, Growth, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, Passion, Peace, Prayer, Reflection, soul and spirit, strength, truth, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

09 Jan 2016

what do you want?

I keep

learning…

Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it; men come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just; by doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled; and by doing brave acts, we become brave……
🔹

Aristotle

Posted in action, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, confidence, courage, determination, Dreams, focus, Passion, Patience, power, Purpose, strength | Leave a comment

02 Jan 2016

pick a peck of poems

Stop whatever it is you’re doing.
Come down from the attic.

Grab a bucket or a basket and head for light.

That’s where the best poems grow, and in the dappled dark.
Go slow. Watch out for thorns and bears.
When you find a good bush, bow to it, or take off your shoes.

Then pluck. This poem. That poem. Any poem.

It should come off the stem easy, just a little tickle.

No need to sniff first, judge the color, test the firmness.
You’ll only know it’s ripe if you taste.
So put a poem upon your lips. Chew its pulp.

Let its juice spill over your tongue.
Let your reading of it teach you

what sort of creature you are

and the nature of the ground you walk upon.

Bring your whole life out loud to this one poem.
Eating one poem can save you, if you’re hungry enough.
When birds and deer beat you to your favorite patch,

smile at their familiar appetite, and ramble on.

Somewhere another crop waits for harvest.
And if your eye should ever light upon a cluster of poems

hanging on a single stem, cup your hand around them

and pull, without greed or clinging.

Some will slip off in your palm.

None will go to waste.

Take those you adore poem-picking when you can,

even to the wild and hidden places.

Reach into brambles for their sake,

stain your skin some shade of red or blue,

mash words against your teeth, for love.
And always leave some poems within easy reach

for the next picker, in kinship with the unknown.

If you ever carry away more than you need,

go on home to your kitchen, and make good jam.

No need to rush, the poems will keep.

Some will even taste better with age,

a rich batch of preserves.

Store up jars and jars of jam. Plenty for friends.

Plenty for the long, howling winter. Plenty for strangers.

Plenty for all the bread in this broken world.

⚜

On How to Pick and Eat Poems by Phyllis Cole-Dai

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

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, find art at pinterest, giving, mystery, Passion, Poetry, Quotes | Leave a comment

29 Dec 2015

ready? clean. close. begin.

CLOSING 2015
One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.

Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.
Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?

You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened.
You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that.

But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister.

Everyone is finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.
Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.
That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home.
Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts – and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.

Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them.
Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.

Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood.
Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.
Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.”
Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back.

Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person – nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need.

This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.
Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life.
Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust.
Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

🎭

Paulo Coelho