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Jun 3

Highest of Arts

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

Deep breath
Soft shoulders
Long gaze
Rapt presence
Reawakening
Well of peace
Within
Grounded in this day
Choices
Before each to decide
To affect the quality of day
Highest of arts, indeed.

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”― Henry David Thoreau

Jun 2

In the Details, Life Ablaze

“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.” — Henry Miller

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

“Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”

In the details, such beauty
The pause, immensity
The gaze, discovery
The stillness, symphony
The witnessing, amazement
The idleness, expansion
Holy, sacred ground we stand
Ordinary days, brimming with life
In wonder, reverence, goodness, grace

“God is in the details.” – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Jun 1

Weight of Joy

“Spring being a tough act to follow, God created June.” – Al Bernstein

“For love is not what we do after we get other things done, if we have any energy left over. Love is what we do, period. It is not how we work; it is the work.” – Eugene Peterson, The Hallelujah Banquet

Show up
To this day
Anew
Changing the world, self first
Weight of joy
Gravity of delight
Grounding of gratitude
Open heart
Small acts
Love is the work.

“When I make changes to me and the way I show up in the world, the world changes too.”― Genevieve Davis, Magic Words and How to Use Them

May 31

Plenitude in Presence

“Beautiful things don’t ask for attention.”― James Thurber, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

“Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around us in awareness.”― James Thurber

Weave, braid, knit sabbaths into each day
Shabbat – to cease, to rest
Pull over, pause, be still
Pockets, slivers, teaspoons
Beauty, awe, wonder
Inquiry, awareness, observation
Emergence
Plenitude in presence.

“It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.”― James Thurber

May 30

It

“Finding a sanctuary, a place apart from time, is not so different from finding a faith.”― Pico Iyer

“The movement of grace toward gratitude brings us from the package of self-obsessed madness to a spiritual awakening. Gratitude is peace.”― Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers

Let it be
Put it down
Busy
Production
Efficiency
Performance
Speed
Judgment
Comparison
To dos
Whatever your “it” is that distracts from grace, gratitude, peace.

“In spring, we expand and stretch in all directions. It’s green exuberance and giddiness, bright clown colors and Easter colors, too; the rebirth of the tender growing soul.”― Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers

May 29

Harvester of Presence

“If you go out for several hours into a place that is wild, your mind begins to slow down, down, down. What is happening is that the clay of your body is retrieving its own sense of sisterhood with the great clay of the landscape.”― John O’Donohue, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World

“The art of disappearing certainly has its own kind of value. In a strange way, in modern society we seem to be inhabiting the world of absence more than presence through the whole world of technology and virtual reality. Very often it seems that the driven nature of contemporary society is turning us into the ultimate harvesters of absence, that is, ghosts in our own lives.”― John O’Donohue, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World

Quiet miracles
In abundance
Clay of landscape
Pay attention
Harvester of presence in, on, through, with this day.

“Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.”― John O’Donohue, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World

May 28

The Beauty of Things

“It seems that intuitive listening requires us to still our minds until the beauty of things older than our minds can find us.”― Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What Is Sacred

“Let’s be in awe
which doesn’t mean
anything but the courage
to gape like fish at the surface
breaking around our mouths
as we meet the air.”― Mark Nepo

Do not let this day slip by unnoticed
Brake for wonder
Pull over for delight
Make a U-turn for peace
Poetry of ordinary days
Surface for fresh air
To the beauty of things.

“To walk quietly until the miracle in everything speaks is poetry, whether we write it down or not.”― Mark Nepo

May 27

Enjoyment, Try It

“You have gained a new source of enjoyment, and it is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible.”― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.”
― Jack Gilbert, Refusing Heaven

Risk delight
Play, lighten up, laugh
Have fun
Not platitudes or naïve
Daily practices
Ways to walk in the world
A skip in your step
To not succumb to chaos
Gloom and doom
A counterbalance
Resilience and resistance
Simple, doable, plentiful
Joy spilling into action
Action spilling into joy
Stubbornness to accept gladness
Cast light

“We classify too much and enjoy too little.”― Okakura Kakuzō, The Book of Tea

 

May 26

Let Us Dance

“Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair…”― susan polis Schutz

“I do love the beginning of the summer hols,’ said Julian. They always seem to stretch out ahead for ages and ages.’

‘They go so nice and slowly at first,’ said Anne, his little sister. ‘Then they start to gallop.”― Enid Blyton, Five Go Off in a Caravan

Too cold, too hot
Too slow, too fast
Too much, too little
Measure, compare, grumble less
Invite, receive, open up to joy more
Summer’s call to presence, awe, life.
Dance.

“Some of the best memories are made in flip flops.”― Kellie Elmore

May 25

Replete with Meaning

“Part of doing something is listening. We are listening. To the sun. To the stars. To the wind.”― Madeleine L’Engle, Swiftly Tilting Planet

“Growing up is a process that never ends. It isn’t a point you attain so you can say, Hooray, I’m grown up. Some people never grow up. And nobody ever finishes growing. Or shouldn’t. If you stop you might as well quit. What I have to tell you is that it never gets any easier. It goes right on being rough forever. But nothing that’s easy is worth anything. You ought to have learned that by now. What happens as you keep on growing is that all of a sudden you realize that it’s more exciting and beautiful than scary and awful.”― Madeleine L’Engle

Eyes on the road ahead, not too far.
Feet anchored in path of this day.
Stop looking for a different ending in the rearview mirror.
Start where you are and carry on.
Time is moving.
Join the flow.
Transformation, ever unfolding.
Growing new, not old.
Stories yet to be written.
Canvas to paint.
Use all the colors.
Go outside the lines.
Bending, not breaking.
Stretching and reaching.
Stumble, trip, get up.
Laugh, alot.
Wander, wonder, delight.
Scattering, mattering, blooming.

“The everyday human gesture is always a heartbeat away from the miraculous — [remember] that ultimately we make things happen through our actions, way beyond our understanding or intention; that our seemingly small ordinary human acts have untold consequences; that what we do in this world means something; that we are not nothing; and that our most quotidian human actions by their nature burst the seams of our intent and spill meaningfully and radically through time and space, changing everything… Our deeds, no matter how insignificant they may feel, are replete with meaning, and of vast consequence, and… they constantly impact upon the unfolding story of the world, whether we know it or not.” – Nick Cave

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