life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “soul and spirit”

09 Sep 2015

sing on 

  
What do you cling to when the waves roll over

your little boat of life? 
When the sound drains out of your days,

what still echoes long into the night?
When you cross over the river

what do you still have in your pockets—
a key to something broken, foreign coins,

a medal on a ribbon, inscribed with silence?
What does it profit you— this world,

its flash and sparkle, to weigh yourself
with its precious coals,

and lose the light you are? 
If you are God’s love song,

what is there to your life but singing?

__________________ 

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

 

 We are given many gifts 
over our lifetimes. 

Gifts are heaped upon us. 

Every day we receive. 

The way we acknowledge these gifts, 

the way we receive them, 

the counting of the gifts, 

awareness in each breath, 

our most important choice. 

One insight brings us life as 

grace or prison. 

Heaven or hell 

is bound up in gratitude.  

I have had many strange and wonderful gifts 

received over my life, 

so far. 

Some took me a long time to recognize the gift within,

some I’m still searching.

Yet this knowledge, 

this ability to see, 

to choose to see,

the glory in the grey,

stars in the night sky,

there is good in all I receive, 

has been the best gift 

of all. 

Life’s cup runs over. 

The path is lined with glittering diamonds. 

Even darkest skies are bright with twinkling stars. 

AL

 

Listen to Billie Holiday sing Come Rain or Come Shine http://youtu.be/RL_P-gHxI3Y

photo sources at www.pinterest.com 

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Choice, courage, find art at pinterest, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, soul and spirit, strength, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
18 Aug 2015
1 Comment

I’ll meet you there…

 

 A lone bird slips through the air.

You do not have to explain yourself.
The beating of your heart

is one with the vast, wordless song of the stars,

the great hum of the world. 
Rivers murmur praise,

deserts and oceans chant their meditations,

cities recite their industrious psalms;

and in your cell, unheard, unknown,

the mystery of heaven unfurls

in your silence. 
No one knows your place,

no one.

No one knows your precious belonging.

We can only believe, 

or err.
The marigold by the roadside

never knows. 

But it is true.
Your only work is to come to trust.
__________________ 

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹

 

 It’s not just that when one door closes, another door opens. 

When one door closes, Amy, choirs burst into chorus, orchestras orchestrate, bugles bugle, marching bands march, dogs catch Frisbees, cats “chow, chow, chow,” pigs fly, and 10,000 new doors open. 

Kind of makes you want a door to close, huh? 

Whoohoooo! 

    The Universe

🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹

I will be taking a break from this blog🔹not sure how long🔹maybe forever🔹lots of beauty in the past 1,000+ posts if you are interested 🔹wishing love, life, music & much happiness to all who come here🔹as well as all who don’t🔹

AL💞

 8🔹18🔹15 AD

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Change, Choice, confidence, connection, courage, Faith, find art at pinterest, Growth, Happiness, Letting Go, Life, Love, receiving, Reflection, soul and spirit, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com
16 Aug 2015

with a little love 

   
  

Listen to Eric Clapton sing Let it Grow http://youtu.be/KXDf9UwHGF4

Photos: top by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT; bottom two found at www.pinterest.com 

  

Posted in attitude, awareness, Choice, commitment, courage, determination, Life, Love, nature, Relationships, soul and spirit, strength, Trust, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
15 Aug 2015

tired… but trying…

   
photos found on facebook

 

Posted in attitude, Change, courage, create, determination, Life, Love, Miracles, music, Purpose, soul and spirit, Trust, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
14 Aug 2015

God’s honest truth

   
  

HONESTY
is reached through the doorway of grief and loss. Where we cannot go in our mind, our memory, or our body is where we cannot be straight with another, with the world, or with our self. The fear of loss, in one form or another, is the motivator behind all conscious and unconscious dishonesties: all of us are afraid of loss, in all its forms, all of us, at times, are haunted or overwhelmed by the possibility of a disappearance, and all of us therefore, are one short step away from dishonesty. Every human being dwells intimately close to a door of revelation they are afraid to pass through. Honesty lies in understanding our close and necessary relationship with not wanting to hear the truth.

The ability to speak the truth is as much the ability to describe what it is like to stand in trepidation at this door, as it is to actually go through it and become that beautifully honest spiritual warrior, equal to all circumstances, we would like to become. Honesty is not the revealing of some foundational truth that gives us power over life or another or even the self, but a robust incarnation into the unknown unfolding vulnerability of existence, where we acknowledge how powerless we feel, how little we actually know, how afraid we are of not knowing and how astonished we are by the generous measure of loss that is conferred upon even the most average life.
Honesty is grounded in humility and indeed in humiliation, and in admitting exactly where we are powerless. Honesty is not found in revealing the truth, but in understanding how deeply afraid of it we are. To become honest is in effect to become fully and robustly incarnated into powerlessness. Honesty allows us to live with not knowing. We do not know the full story, we do not know where we are in the story; we do not know who is at fault or who will carry the blame in the end. Honesty is not a weapon to keep loss and heartbreak at bay, honesty is the outer diagnostic of our ability to come to ground in reality, the hardest attainable ground of all, the place where we actually dwell, the living, breathing frontier where there is no realistic choice between gain or loss. 
    – David Whyte

   

photo sources: top 2 photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT

other photos @ http://www.pinterest.com

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, courage, intimacy, Life, Love, People, power, Respect, soul and spirit, strength, Trust, truth, Vulnerability | Leave a comment
13 Aug 2015

who’s responsible? 

 

  

   

  

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, determination, find art at pinterest, grace, Gratitude, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, nature, People, Relationships, soul and spirit, Uncategorized, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
12 Aug 2015

standing tall 

  

Erik Wahl:

The purpose of art is not to produce a product. The purpose of art is to produce thinking. The secret is not the mechanics or technical skill that create art – but the process of introspection and different levels of contemplation that generate it. Once you learn to embrace this process, your creative potential is limitless.
Artwork should be an active verb (a lens by which to view the world) not a passive noun (a painting that sits dormant in a museum). Creativity lies NOT in the done but in the doing. Art is active and incomplete. Always shifting, always becoming. Art is a sneak peak into the future of potential, of what could be. Not a past result of what has been already done. Art is a process not a product. 
Art is a human act. Art is Risky. Generous. Courageous. Provocative. You can be perfect, or you can make art. You can keep track of what you will get in return for your effort, or you can make art. You can enjoy the status quo, or you can make art. 
This is the purpose for why art should not be cut from education.

 

Photo sources found at www.pinterest.com 

  

Posted in action, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Career, Change, Choice, courage, determination, find art at pinterest, mystery, soul and spirit, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
11 Aug 2015

every day life offers…

 

    
  This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a 

stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have 

your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman 

down beside you at the counter who says, Last night,

the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,

is this a message, finally, or just another day?
Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the

pond, where whole generations of biological 

processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds

speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,

they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old 

enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?

There is movement beneath the water, but it 

may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.
And then life suggests that you remember the 

years you ran around, the years you developed

a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,

owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are

genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have

become. And then life lets you go home to think

about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.
Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one

who never had any conditions, the one who waited

you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that

you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave,

so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you 

were born at a good time. Because you were able 

to listen when people spoke to you. Because you

stopped when you should have and started again.
So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your

late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And 

then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland, 

while outside, the starfish drift through the channel, 

with smiles on their starry faces as they head

out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.

☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️

Starfish by Eleanor Lerman

   
    
 Listen to The Eagles sing Peaceful Easy Feeling http://youtu.be/n00g71TySS4

Posted in attitude, awareness, beloved, Blessing, Change, Choice, determination, Freedom, grace, Life, Love, Passion, Patience, Peace, People, soul and spirit, truth | Leave a comment
09 Aug 2015

 the possibilities are endless   

  
Turn a fool into gold

Turn a broken heart into a warrior of love

Turn a weak voice into an instrument of peace

Turn my messy life into a picture of grace

Turn my eyes to see only beauty

Turn my mourning into laughing

and my weary heart to be a trusting home

Turn my sorrow into pure joy

keep my feet from stumbling on the path

That is my prayer, oh Lord,

Turn my fear into courage

And turn my self will into a puddle of loving goodness to pour out on the ones I love

Let me walk hand in hand, 

and sleep in peace each night,

in fields of gold with the one who loves me like no other could ever love me

Thank you. Thank you,

always and forever

So be it

xo

💞

AL

Listen to Jason Isbell sing Cover Me Up http://youtu.be/WdwnGG29Upw

💞
photo found on facebook/rumi

  

Posted in attitude, awareness, beloved, connection, find art at pinterest, grace, Gratitude, Joy, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, Passion, Prayer, soul and spirit, Trust, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
08 Aug 2015

One new perception, one fresh thought, one act of surrender, one change of heart, one leap of faith, can change your life forever. — Robert Holden

 

 You see, people have some really crazy ideas about love, friends and relationships. They have the absurd belief that their friends, children, family, lovers and companions can make them happy. Love is by, for and about you, and it never had anything to do with another person. The love you bring to the table, is a way of living that you have been practicing in your life — and that love can be needy, controlling, selfish, conditional and desperate, or it can be confident, open, giving, unconditional, and secure. Your love capability is something you cultivate within yourself. Loving is like any other art-craft where the masters have carefully practiced and where the novices have languished in their carelessness. This is why some relationships look so beautiful, and some look so tragic — beauty belongs to the thoughtful; tragedy to the neglectful.
   – Bryant McGill

 

   

photo sources at www.pinterest.com 

 

Posted in action, attitude, awareness, beloved, Choice, commitment, find art at pinterest, Life, Love, mystery, Relationships, soul and spirit, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

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