life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “soul and spirit”

we are each unique and if we didn’t exist Something in the world would have been lost. – Martha Graham 

A list of freedoms:

I am willing to sound dumb. 

I am willing to be wrong. 

I am willing to be passionate about something that isn’t perceived as cool. 

I am willing to express a theory. 

I am willing to admit I’m afraid. 

I’m willing to contradict something I’ve said before. 

I’m willing to have a knee-jerk reaction, even a wrong one. 

I’m willing to apologize.

I’m willing to be perfectly human. 

     – Donald Miller in Scary Close



www.pinterest.com/al513

revealing softness

















The Wind and The Sun

an Aesop Fable

       The wind and the sun argued one day over which one was the stronger. Spotting a man man traveling on the road, they sported a challenge to see which one could remove the coat from the man’s back the quickest.
    The wind began. He blew strong gusts of air, so strong that the man could barely walk against them. But the man clutched his coat tight against him. The wind blew harder and longer, and the harder the wind blew, the tighter the man held his coat against him. The wind blew until he was exhausted, but he could not remove the coat from the man’s back.
     It was now the sun’s turn. He gently sent his beams upon the traveler. The sun did very little, but quietly shone upon his head and back until the man became so warm that he took off his coat and headed for the nearest shade tree.

____________________________________

Gentle persuasion is stronger than force.


Stay soft – for God’s strength is always revealed through our weaknesses and scars. 


Find source photots at www.pinterst.com/al513

gold is not afraid of the fire

Page by page it was written into their flesh, not by addition but instead by what they gave away

The emptiness inscribed itself upon them
until all the text that remained of them
was a thin track
lingering 
in the dust
until even that
blew away
and was carried off by a vast silence. 
Jan Richardson
In the Sanctuary of Women











photo source tracks found at http://pinterest.com/al513

every bridge invites someone to cross it.     – Deepak Chopra


Word of God, flowing free

flow in and through us,
to cleanse and bring
and new beginning,
a fresh start,
right relationships 
and peace. 
When the tide recedes,
leaving a fresh page of sand,
then the time is right for forgiveness. 
When the tide is balanced on the horizon,
flowing in on one shore and out on the other,
then the time is right for dialogue. 
When the tide comes flooding in,
washing clean the beach,
then the time is right to begin again. 
Word of God, flowing free,
flow in and through us,
to cleanse and bring
a new beginning,
a fresh start,
right relationship. 
The Flooding Tide by Kate McIhaggo

http://www.ionabooks.com/the-green-heart-of-the-snowdrop-downloadable-book.html





on the shores of my soul 

I invite you to come
cross the bridge of love 
and sit with me a while
and wonder the possibility 
of where our love can lead
the river is wide
from shore to shore
there’s a bridge of love
we must cross once more
to reach our home on the distant shore
where we’ll both be safe where fear and war and pain will be no more

ACL 3/2/15


spending life

Being here, on this planet, at this very time and place, breathing, living these moments we are granted, as who we have been created to be, is our ultimate gift. 

We are given free will, we are allowed to decide what our lives are about, who’s allowed to live with us, what we will live for and what we will die for. 

Not consciously choosing is a choice. We will not be granted more time to relive our choices. 

Thank you, Mary Oliver for putting it so beautifully, because no one else can answer this very important question for you:

What will you do with your one wild and precious life?








listen to Karma

http://youtu.be/19o7HzRQkrw

http://www.lindabonadies.com

photo source tracks found at

in the coldest times

Sometimes you have to take your own hand

as though you were a lost child
and bring yourself stumbling
home over twisted ice.

Whiteness drifts over your house.
A page of warm light
falls steady from the open door.

Here is your bed, folded open.
Lie down, lie down, let the blue snow cover you.

Grief by Louise Erdrich














photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT

http://youtu.be/o6rwMRE3NKg





Sōetsu Yanagi, founder of Japan’s modern craft movement, defines beauty as that which gives unlimited scope to the imagination; beauty is a source of imagination, he says, that never dries up. A thing so attractive and absorbing may not be pretty or pleasant. It could be ugly, in fact, and yet seize the soul as beautiful in a special sense…luring the heart into profound and endless imagination. 

     – Thomas Moore (edited)




preaching to myself today…

 From the place where we are right/flowers will never grow/in the spring./The place where we are right/is hard and trampled/like a yard./But doubts and loves/dig up the world/like a mole, a plough./And a whisper will be heard in the place/where the ruined/house once stood. 

 Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai



On this day of your life  
 I believe God wants you to know…    

…that the best argument you can make 
is no argument
at all.


Do not argue with life, or with anyone in life. Life
presents itself perfectly in every moment, and every
person believes his or her point of view to be valid
and ‘right.’
 
Arguing with any of this is pointless, and a terrific
waste of energy. Simply create what you choose next.

Love,  Your Friend …



Commentary on Community:

Conversations

Every time we gather becomes a model of the future we want to create.

Authentic conversations create a future distinct from the past.

Conversations create possibility.

Show up. Be present.

The more words you use, the less likely you are to be authentic. 

Inversions

These two matter to me at the moment:

The future creates the present. 

The listener creates the speaker.

Taking (emotional) risks creates safety

Changing the Future

The past is only a lesson about the future to be used in the present.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Restorative Justice

This thought is taking from “Community” and “Sitting in the Fire.”

Restorative justice is communal justice (as opposed to individual retribution)

Restorative justice adds a measure of balance to the community.

 

Based on the community conversation practices of Peter Block

http://www.asmallgroup.net

Captured by Eric Hansen – Hansen Resource Development


To be truly alive

is to be fully, freely, lovingly present

in this moment,
drinking in the grace of God
and pouring myself out in love
for God and for all beings.


What do I gain

by abandoning this
to be right,
to get my way,
to be comfortable,
to manage how people think of me?


When I win the argument,

protect my beliefs, defend myself,
when I judge another 
and put them in their place,
when I separate myself from those
who suffer pain or injustice,
when I buy another trinket 
for my heart’s little room
and close the door,
what have I lost?


I am not a body or a reputation

but a soul.
God of love,
open my door.
Let life spill in
and spill out. 
Let me suffer and love,

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

Change is the end result of all true learning.

    – Leo Buscaglia 

photo source tracks found at





what am I to do?

Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.

                  —Mark 8.34

God of love, be in me
to embody your gentleness and grace,
to love at my own cost,
to enter the suffering of the world,
to hold the wounded in my heart,
to bear the monstrous without explanation,
to absorb the pain without retaliation,
to let there be a hell on earth
without another,
to trust that even the greatest evil
cannot drive you out,
and that love and forgiveness alone
will change the world.
Grant me faith to be willing 
to be overwhelmed
and raised again.
I do not ask for heroic strength
but for you
to bear the cross in me,
that by your Spirit in me
I may be Christ,
crucified,
and risen,
no longer small,
no longer threatened,
no longer afraid.

__________________  
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light

www.unfoldinglight.net











stay open…stay soft…the hard world needs it

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A significant decision.

Put off until a tomorrow
that might never appear.

And a knowing deep
in tired bones.

Of what he, she,
I must do.

Along with its pain,
consequence and
inexplicable relief.

Nic Askew

Home

Now is the time to let your grief find expression. No false strength. Now is the time to sit quietly and speak to the person gone, and thank them for being with you these few moments, and encourage them to go on with whatever their work is, knowing that you will grow in compassion and wisdom from this experience. In my heart, I know that we will meet again and again, and recognize the many ways in which we have known each other. And when we meet we will know, in a flash, what now it is not given for us to know: Why this had to be the way it was.
Our rational minds can never understand what has happened, but our hearts – if we can keep them open to God – will find their own intuitive way.
– Ram Dass

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photo source tracks found at

giving it all

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there is no cage
love must be stepped into
freely.

there is no withholding
love gives it all away.

there is no have to’s
love must be given and received willingly.

there is no selfish motive
love always wants the highest and best for the other person.

there are no ‘no’s’
love always says yes.

there are no demands
love allows the other person to decide.

love takes commitment.

it is not an easy job,
both parties –
equal –
understanding the gift –
100 percent in.

you must choose what you want,
knowing the consequences of your choices.

Just know, for sure,
love will always set you free.

there is no fear in love.

ACL 2/22/15

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Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose without any insistence that they satisfy you.
– Wayne Dyer

We are not transmitting or receiving love as we were divinely intended to—we are filtering love rather than feeling it. We fell for the prevailing hysteria that said, “Protect your heart,” and we began to believe that love itself had enemies and needed protecting. When we were hurt, we felt that love was somehow diminished or damaged. But hurt has nothing to do with love, and love is unaffiliated with and unaffected by pain. Ego was hurt, not love. Love is divine; it is everywhere, ever present and abundant and free. It is a spiritual energy that is, at this very moment, flowing through the universe—through us, through our enemies, through our families, through billions of souls. It was never absent from our lives. It is not bound in our hearts or in our relationships, and thus it is not capable of being owned or lost. We have allowed our awareness of love to diminish; that is all. In doing so, we have caused our own suffering. We must mature and realize that freeing our mind of ancient hurts and opening once more to love shall give us access to divine strength. To stand emotionally open before the world and give of our hearts without fear of hurt or demand of reciprocity—this is the ultimate act of human courage. For this, we now declare: WE SHALL AMPLIFY LOVE.
Brendon Burchard
Declaration 7 from http://MotivationManifesto.com/
💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞
The light of the desert reaches down
into the crevices of the rocks,
can tell stone from shadow.

Holy One,
may I see myself with the eyes of love,
see clearly what in me is love
and what is not love.

Heal my fear,
forgive me wholly,
and hearten me
to choose well,
to step wisely.
_________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net

photo source tracks found at

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