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Sep 12

Shortcut to Awe

“GET OUTDOORS.”― Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life

“Tap into your childlike sense of wonder. Young children are in an almost constant state of awe since everything is so new to them. During your walk, try to approach what you see with fresh eyes, imagining that you’re seeing it for the first time. Take a moment in each walk to take in the vastness of things, for example in looking at a panoramic view or up close at the detail of a leaf or flower. Go somewhere new. Each week, try to choose a new location. You’re more likely to feel awe in a novel environment where the sights and sounds are unexpected and unfamiliar to you. That said, some places never seem to get old, so there’s nothing wrong with revisiting your favorite spots if you find that they consistently fill you with awe. The key is to recognize new features of the same old place.”― Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life

Small things
Abundant in ordinary days
A walk in the woods
Blue sky
Flowers unfolding
Fresh air
Wander and wonder
Vastness, depth, expanse
Same transformed by awe.

“Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world.”― Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life

Sep 11

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Rememberance and Honoring

“For the righteous will never be moved; they will be remembered forever.” – Psalm 112:6

Honor
Remember
Live differently
Love well
25 years
Courage, sacrifice, humanity
Grief, gratitude, grace
Sacred ground, unmoved.

“No day shall erase you from the memory of time” – Virgil

 

Sep 10

Blue Sky View, Pull Over

“Gratitude, not understanding, is the secret to joy and equanimity.” – Anne Lamott

“Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive acts of all. Laugh, rest, slow down.” – Anne Lamott

Fresh start
Subtle shif
New approach
Play, laughter, rest
Gratitude, grace, love
Delight in ordinary days

“Love was life’s secret purpose.”― Martine Murray, How To Make A Bird

Sep 9

Rising with the Sun

“Ô, Sunlight! The most precious gold to be found on Earth.”― Roman Payne

Morning Poem by Mary Oliver

“Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches–
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead–
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging–

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted–

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.”

Morning has broken.
Lavishing light.
Poetry and prayer.
Gratitude and grace.
Brilliance and beauty.
May I rise with the light.
See the world anew.

Sep 8

Streaming Wonder

“Take time to see the quiet miracles that
eek no attention”― John O’Donohue

“When our eyes are graced with wonder, the world reveals its wonders to us. There are people who see only dullness in the world and that is because their eyes have already been dulled. So much depends on how we look at things. The quality of our looking determines what we come to see.”― John O’Donohue, Beauty: A Study of Beauty in Celtic Spirituality and the Human Spirit

Quality of looking, glance to gaze
Streaming, weaving wonder
Revealing and unfolding
Angle of awe
Flowing, looking with fresh eyes.

“I would love to live like a river flows,
carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.”― John O’Donohue

 

Sep 7

Fruits of Labor

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”― John Lubbock, The Use Of Life

“Most of the things we need to be most fully alive never come in busyness. They grow in rest.”― Mark Buchanan, The Holy Wild

To slow, pause, pull over.
Daily rest.
Refueling, replenishment, regeneration.
Becoming, being, blooming.
Work, put it down, play.
Enjoy the fruits of labor.

“The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of room, not try to be or do anything whatever.”― May Sarton

Sep 6

Summer, Waxing and Waning

“Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.” – Mary Oliver

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?”

Life, one day, one minute at a time.
Simple, ordinary, brilliant.
Blessed on this ground.
In the quiet and chaos, all in between.
Forever in the stream.
Precious, wild, presence.

“May I stay forever in the stream.” – Mary Oliver

Sep 5

Unencumbered and Bright

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

To being yourself
Loud and soft
Authentic, brilliant, imperfect
To allow others the same grace
New day, clean slate
Useful, honorable, compassionate
Unencumbered and bright
Blooming in all seasons.

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sep 4

Reckless Ripples

“To frolic with the wind, and tease the sea.” — Lord Byron

“Ripples are made by those reckless enough to jump into the ocean.”― Michael Bassey Johnson, Before You Doubt Yourself

Frolic, play, fun.
Performance and production put aside.
Opinions and assumptions on a time out.
Lighten and loosen up.
Life is happening now in ordinary days.
Awaiting your attention, participation, partaking.
Simple acts, deep gratitude, easy smile.
Hold hands with awe and wonder.
Joy, laughter, delight too.
A leap away.

“It is a happy talent to know how to play.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sep 3

Holding Flowers

“In English we say ‘I’m tired.’ But in poetry we say I’ve been holding up entire skies with hands that were only ever meant to hold flowers.” – Sophia Bray

“Rest:
as beautiful and necessary a task as any.
How else can we remember to breathe?
to think?
to shut out the world?
to not think?
to regain the strength
to take on the world?
to take in the world
with all our senses?
to dream?”― Shellen Lubin

Endings and beginnings.
Holding hands.
Walking each other home.
Until one takes the lead.
As the other fades, falls behind, rests from work well done.
Sure to come again.
In due time and timing.
Entering familiar spaces with fresh eyes, new hope.
Holding flowers in all seasons.
Skies meant for gazing, not holding.

“Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.
Bid the last fruits to be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to ripeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

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