life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Spring”

16 Feb 2012

love sets free

Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. – C.S. Lewis
Today is a ‘Freedom Anniversary’ for me! It is a big deal! My life has been a progression of stepping towards freedom.
The battles have been long, dangerous and hard to win in order to free myself. Both physically and spiritually. I am not completely there yet – it is a life-long exploration and journey to free myself. The chains and bars in my prisons, because I find they are legion, are very strong. My Alcatraz type barren -rock islands were such a long way from shore, with many snipers, predators and sharp rocks in the water and on all sides of the shores. My guards were very alert and ready to shoot me, or keep me locked down and in solitary for my whole life. They were gleeful when I fell and happy over my pain and destruction.
And yet, the love, the words, and truth, of God were so much more powerful than any of these things, that no prison in this world could not hold me and, for 22 years now, I keep walking out of my prisons into the brilliant light and sunshine of the free!!!!

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou

A free bird leaps on the back
Of the wind and floats downstream
Till the current ends and dips his wing
In the orange suns rays
And dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage|
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through
The sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
Lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with
A fearful trill of things unknown
But longed for still and his
Tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.

http://songsfromthevalley.com/July-09-2-14-Freedom.pdf

Posted in Adventure, Alone, America, art, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, Beliefs, Blessing, Blog, Burnign Bridges, Career, Change, Choice, courage, create, Dancing, Death, determination, do, dominance, Dreams, Encouragement, force, Freedom, fun, Gratitude, Grieving, Growth, Habits, Happiness, Happy Holiday!, home, Hope, Imagine, Impossible, Joy, Judging, kindness, laugh, Leadership, Letting Go, Life, light, Lonely, Losing, Love, Miracles, Mother, music, Newsletter, Party, Passion, Peace, People, Poetry, politics, power, Prayer, Proof, Purpose, quiet, Quotes, Reality, Reflection, Relationships, Respect, Seasons, Smile, Solitude, Songs from the Valley, Spring, Stars and Moonlight, strength, success, Sweet, Tears, Tenderness, thankfulness, Thoughts, time, Today, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, Winning, words, worry, Writing | Leave a comment
07 Aug 2011
1 Comment

How Much Difference Can One Person Make?

An excerpt from
One Solitary Life
By James A. Francis
He was born in an obscure village the child of a peasant woman.

He grew up in still another village
where He worked in a carpenter shop
until He was thirty, and then for three years
He was an itinerant preacher.

He never wrote a book.
He never held an office.
He never had a family.
He never owned a house.
He never went to college.
He never visited a big city.

He never traveled
two hundred miles
from the place
where He was born.

He did none of the things
one usually associates with greatness.
He had no credentials but Himself.

He was only thirty-three when
the tide of public opinion turned against Him.
His friends ran away.
He was turned over to His enemies
and went through the mockery of a trial.

He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.

While He was dying
His executioners gambled for His clothing,
the only property He had on earth.

When He was dead
He was laid in a borrowed grave
through the pity of a friend.

Twenty centuries have come and gone,
and today Jesus is the central figure
of the human race,
the leader of mankind’s progress.

All the armies that have ever marched
All the navies that have ever sailed
All the parliaments that have ever sat
All the kings that have ever reigned
put together

Have not affected the life
of mankind on this earth
as much as that
one solitary life.

http://www.simple truths.com
Posted in Becoming Yourself, Beginning, Beliefs, Blessing, Blog, Change, Choice, courage, create, Death, determination, Dreams, Freedom, Gratitude, Growth, Habits, Happiness, Hope, Impossible, Letting Go, Life, light, Love, Miracles, Peace, People, Poetry, power, quiet, Reality, Reflection, Relationships, Smile, Spring, strength, success, Tears, time, Trust, Winning
05 Jul 2011

This is what you shall do

by Walt Whitman

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

“This is what you shall do…” by Walt Whitman, from the preface of Leaves of Grass. Public domain.
Posted in Becoming Yourself, Beginning, Beliefs, Blessing, Burnign Bridges, Career, Change, Choice, courage, create, Death, determination, dominance, Dreams, force, Freedom, Gratitude, Grieving, Growth, Habits, Happiness, Hope, Impossible, Judging, Letting Go, Life, light, Losing, Love, Miracles, Mother, Peace, People, Poetry, power, Purpose, quiet, Quotes, Reality, Reflection, Relationships, Seasons, Smile, Spring, Stars and Moonlight, strength, success, Tears, time, Trust, Winning, worry | Leave a comment
27 May 2011
1 Comment

Flowering

In the lengthening days of early spring,

among the vanishing snowshadows,

I hear new bird songs, see geese overhead,

and greet the long-awaited return of smells.

Trees light their little green sparklers,

and I walk among them.

Then the great flowering procession begins:

first the gentle, snow-defiant crocuses,

and the hyacinth, low and easy to miss,

then the forsythia, the dogwood, dandelions

and daffodils, followed in proper order

by the tulips and the flowering trees,

crabs and cherries, and the azaleas.

Little purple things, and white ones, dot the yard.

Finally the lilacs bloom, and I walk among them.

The catalpa tree will blossom much later,

and I will stand beside it as well.

Among flowering beings, softly opening,

with billowing wonders, I, too, live,

with my own great unfolding.

______________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes – Unfolding Light – used with permission –  www.unfoldinglight.net 

Posted in Becoming Yourself, Beginning, Beliefs, Blessing, Blog, Change, Growth, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, Poetry, Reflection, Seasons, Spring
03 May 2011

May Blessing

May you be given eyes to see

in all that is bare and ordinary in you

an extravagant blossoming.

 May your presence be a blessing,

that others may feel with you

as if they have awakened

to a lovely spring day.

May your gifts suddenly bloom

in colors beyond your imagining.

May the swans of God’s grace

descend upon your pond

and build nests there,

and raise their young.

 May your whole earth

inside and out

be made new.

______________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

www.unfoldinglight.net

Posted in Becoming Yourself, Blessing, Gratitude, Growth, Life, Love, Miracles, People, Poetry, Seasons, Spring | Leave a comment
15 Apr 2011

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake,
beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as
the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in
never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them
danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but
be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my
couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward
eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

by William Wordsworth

Public domain

Posted in Freedom, Poetry, quiet, Spring, Uncategorized | Leave a comment
06 Apr 2011

Spring….

is nature’s way of saying, “Let’s PARTY!!!   – Robin Williams

Check out the current newsletter at

http://www.songsfromthevalley.com

Posted in Life, Newsletter, Party, Quotes, Seasons, Songs from the Valley, Spring, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

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