life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “soul and spirit”

promise keeper

 to make a promise…

Make a place of prayer, no fuss,
just lean into the white brilliance 
and say what you needed to say
all along, nothing too much, words
as simple and as yours and as heard
as the bird song above your head
or the river running gently beside you,
let your words join to the world 
the way stone nestles on stone
the way the water simply leaves 
and goes to the sea,
the way your promise 
breathes and belongs 
with every other promise 
the world has ever made. 

Now, leave them to go on, 
let your words alone 
to carry their own life,
without you, let the promise 
go with the river. 
Have faith. Walk away.



TO MAKE A PROMISE by David Whyte

 

So easy to miss the moment.
Just this.
This inhale. . . . this exhale. . . .
This dawn of dark clouds streaked with light.
This smile, this ache, this laughter, these tears. . . 
As we slip into the water of this week unfolding before us.
             ~ Oriah

  

Listen to Gavin McGraw sing Follow Through http://youtu.be/dr2o8Ir30Zc

🚣🏿🚣🏿🚣🏿🚣🏿🚣🏿🚣🏿🚣🏿🚣🏿

photo sources found at http://www.pinterest.com/al513

Caesium standardΒ 

 caesium standard or caesium atomic clock is a primary frequency standard in which electronic transitionsbetween the two hyperfine ground states of caesium-133 atoms are used to control the output frequency. The first caesium clock was built by Louis Essenin 1955 at the National Physical Laboratory in the UK.[1]
Caesium clocks are the most accurate commercially produced time and frequency standards, and serve as the primary standard for the definition of the second in SI (the metric system). By definition, radiation produced by the transition between the two hyperfine ground states of caesium (in the absence of external influences such as the Earth’s magnetic field) has a frequency of exactly 9,192,631,770 Hz. That value was chosen so that the caesium second equalled, to the limit of human measuring ability in 1960 when it was adopted, the existing standard ephemeris second based on the Earth‘s orbit around the Sun.[2] Because no other measurement involving time had been as precise, the effect of the change was less than the experimental uncertainty of all existing measurements. 

πŸ•˜πŸ•˜πŸ•˜πŸ•˜πŸ•˜πŸ•˜πŸ•˜πŸ•˜πŸ•˜πŸ•˜ 05.01.15

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium_standard
 
Listen to Aime by Pure Prairie League http://youtu.be/V4mCiYQeU_s
πŸ•˜πŸ•˜πŸ•˜πŸ•˜πŸ•˜πŸ•˜πŸ•˜πŸ•˜πŸ•˜πŸ•˜πŸ•˜πŸ•˜

photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513

declaration Β 

 
THIS IS ENOUGH! 

Listen to John Legend sing All of Me http://youtu.be/Mk7-GRWq7wA 

photo source at www.pinterest.com/al513

  

sprung Β  Β 

   
 


 Grass grows in the night

and early the mockingbirds begin
their fleet courtships over puddles,
upon wires, in the new green
of the Spanish limes.

Their white-striped wings flash
as they flirt and dive.
Wind in the chimes pulls music
from the air, the sky’s cleared
of its vast complications.

In the pause before summer,
the wild sprouting of absolutely
everything: hair, nails, the mango’s
pale rose pennants, tongues of birds
singing daylong.

Words, even, and sudden embraces,
surprising dreams and things I’d never
imagined, in all these years of living,
one more astonished awakening.

🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱
Morning in May by Rosalind Brackenbury
 
This is my commandment, 
         that you love one another as I have loved you.
                  β€”John 15.12

that is, 
with tender attention
and stout resilience,
that is,
despite your blame and fear,
your betrayal yet to come,
your lack of repentance,

as I have loved you
when you were determined 
not to deserve it,

that you love as I have,
withholding nothing,
excusing no one,

that you pour yourself out
for the unworthy,

as I have 
pour yourself out
of your life
into eternal love
and as I have
rise
new, 
perfected
in love.

__________________  
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

 
 

a happy day in May

  A delicate fabric of bird song

   Floats in the air, 
The smell of wet wild earth 
   Is everywhere. 

Red small leaves of the maple 
   Are clenched like a hand, 
Like girls at their first communion
   The pear trees stand. 

Oh I must pass nothing by 
   Without loving it much, 
The raindrop try with my lips, 
   The grass with my touch; 

For how can I be sure 
   I shall see again 
The world on the first of May 
   Shining after the rain?
πŸŒ·πŸŒΉβ˜”οΈπŸŒ·πŸŒΉβ˜”οΈπŸŒ·πŸŒΉβ˜”οΈπŸπŸŒΉβ˜”οΈβ˜€οΈ
May Day by Sara Teasdale
 
Listen to Kate Earl sing Shadows and Light http://youtu.be/wKXvrtCiOvo
photos found at www.pinterest.com/al492 

Today! Β 

  This is why we survive the winter

The world shows off
Flowers are bursting color
Flaming forsythia frames the river
Fuzzy trees and bushes make me squirmy happy 
The sky beams blue
The water waves joyfully
The sand gladly greets, 
us with our winter legs
(except for the hardcore tanning bed crowd – already too brown for the rest of us)
little girls and their tattooed fathers pick up shells and rocks
to fill purple buckets of heartwarming, serious cuteness
coconut oil floats deliciously on the warm breeze 
I can’t stop smiling
Spring has sprung
Let love begin
AL 4/29/15
  
   

 

   


   

  
  

buzzing

 If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that joy is not a constant state, but a low grade buzz that sometimes roars and other times purrs, but that it is always available to sink down into, if I’m feeling the ache that makes for tears or the ache that makes for celebration. – Jen Lemen
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

Jen Lemen says my poetry-prompt word of the day – buzz
as she reads my blog and responds. 

I love Jen Lemen over at ‘Hopeful World’ 
http://hopefulworld.org
I missed my word as I read it the first time, 
not mindful of today’s word, 
because I was still stuck in yesterday’s word ‘vine’. 
Then there it is, with a Lemen-y flair…
  
My heart leaps to attention 
I fly right there to find it 
Copy the sentence…
Smile
yes, ‘joy is a low grade buzz’
along with 
peace
love
harmony
they all live under the same everyday rooftop
once you understand them 
allow them in 
they are your friends
constant companions
making life balanced
glorious 
stable
the foundation made of jewels
gold
strong rock 
like granite 
storms come and go
the buzz stays 
and becomes the music we dance to
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
ACL 11/14/13
  
  

Listen to The Muppets sing Ode to Joy

http://youtu.be/VnT7pT6zCcA
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

a few months ago I was Jen Lemen’s apple cake angel πŸ˜‡ https://lifeacousticandamplified.wordpress.com/?s=apple+cake&submit=Search

 photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513

blue skies

 

 Close the doors. 
You’ve already paid your dues. 
Light the candles. Breathe 
the Lilly of the Valley, the lilacs 
in the vase. Reach for a pen. 
Take a couple sheets of 
parchment paper. Stretch. 
Do Chi Gong. It seems obvious, 
but sit down. Close your eyes. 
Reach into the abyss. Tap into 
the divinity, the Oversoul, 
the Muse of the Mind. Let 
your thoughts spill onto paper. 

Let’s pretend you are the newest star. 
Rescue your mind from a ditch. 
Be aware a certain absurdity attends 
outside the door. Awaken. 
You are the healing waters. 
Close the door, but don’t close 
your mind. Come find your 
own blue sky.

 
Listen to Willie Nelson sing Blue Skies http://youtu.be/sGZDwxnjG1g
   

 

Photo by Fisherman Dan @Branford, CT

we are allΒ 

 We are challenged to love the unloveable
Do good to those who hate us
there is only one way to get this done –
To see myself as I am. 
It is what it is. 
I am the other. 
I am the unlovable. 
Only I know how much this is true,
full of lies and ego. 
I want to fight my way to the top,
crush those beneath. 
I want to do things my way. 
The earth to revolve around my desires. 
Under my self-pleasing ways,
I am afraid, 
because I know the truth. 
Yes, I am the unlovable
yet I am loved
I have experienced this love
and it has changed me,
at least parts of me,

I should say, 
It is changing me…
daily
I have been overwhelmed by grace,
drowned in the goodness of love,
resurrected in loves fire. 
It has allowed me to see my imperfections,
accept them,
even laugh at them 
and challenged me to
admit the truth,
to change,
to open,
to die,
to become vulnerable,
to love myself and
to love others,
who are the unlovable as well

Only love can mend a heart
only love can break it in two –
or into a million pieces,
then turn it to gold
in order to allow this love to flow through the broken and scarred,
to heal the world,

wounded healers all,
by sharing this same great love
this loves which loves us all
Yes, we are all the unlovable
yet we are loved,
just as we are. 
πŸ˜ˆπŸ˜‡πŸ‘ΏπŸ˜‡πŸ˜ˆπŸ˜‡πŸ‘ΏπŸ˜‡
ACL 8/28/13
 
photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513 

 

What haunts us are not the dead, but the gaps left within us by the secrets of others.Β Β  Β – Maria Torok & Nicholas AbrahamΒ 

 

sometimes. 
I don’t know what to say. 
sometimes. 
The very words catch behind
safe guards of emotion. 
sometimes. 
Speech refuses to commence. 
sometimes. 
Words pool behind the locked door. Waiting. 
sometimes. 
I lay and pray the words you don’t want to hear will dissolve inside me. 
sometimes.  
Silence fills the outside air. 
sometimes. 
Inside air is thick and muggy,
like the rain forest 
or Savannah in August. 
sometimes. 
I go to sleep with heavy lungs,
weight of the unspoken hanging like the world between us. 
sometimes. 

ACL 6/19/13

      

Listen to Sara Bareilles sing Brave http://youtu.be/QUQsqBqxoR4 

πŸ™ŠπŸ™‰πŸ™ˆπŸ™ŠπŸ™‰πŸ™ˆπŸ™ŠπŸ™‰πŸ™ˆπŸ™ŠπŸ™‰πŸ™ˆπŸ΅

Photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513 

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