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Jul 3

Bound by Beauty

“Let us live like flowers—wild and beautiful and drenched in sun.” — Ellen Everett

“Ten times a day something happens to me like this – some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.”― Mary Oliver

Drenched in sun.
Bursting with colors.
Overflowing with amazement.
One with the world.
Bound by beauty.
Woven in simple.
Hidden in ordinary.
Attentiveness the path.
Grounded in gratitude.
Transformation, one bud at a time.
Cast light.

“The spirit of a time is an incredibly subtle, yet hugely powerful force. And it is comprised of the mentality and spirit of all individuals together. Therefore, the way you look at things is not simply a private matter. Your outlook actually and concretely affects what goes on. When you give in to helplessness, you collude with despair and add to it. When you take back your power and choose to see the possibilities for healing and transformation, your creativity awakens and flows to become an active force of renewal and encouragement in the world. In this way, even in your own hidden life, you can become a powerful agent of transformation in a broken, darkened world. There is a huge force field that opens when intention focuses and directs itself toward transformation.” John O’Donohue, Benedictus, To Bless the Space Between Us

Jul 2

Beeing

“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind.” – Ashley Smith

“Mindfulness is not chasing the moment but sipping the nectar of the moment.”― Amit Ray, Mindfulness Living in the Moment – Living in the Breath

Put on summer.
Soak in slow.
Put down doing.
Pick up ease.
Sit in being.

“Let July be July. Let August be August. And let yourself just be even in the uncertainty. You don’t have to fix everything. You don’t have to solve everything. And you can still find peace and grow in the wild of changing things.” — Morgan Harper Nichols

Jul 1

Lavishly Scattered

“There is poetry among the wildflowers.”― Rachel Irene Stevenson

“How lavishly are the flowers scattered over the face of the earth! One of the most perfect and delightful works of the Creation, there is yet no other form of beauty so very common. Abounding in different climates, upon varying soils -not a few here to cheer the sad, a few there to reward the good but countless in their throngs, infinite in their variety, the gift of measureless beneficence wherever man may live, there grow the flowers.”― Susan Fenimore Cooper

The daily call of noticing
Practice of wonder
Rigor of reverence
Discipline of awe
All the beauty lavishly scattered
At our feet, in, on, throughout this very day
Sacred ground
Common, ordinary hours
Alive and flourishing
Pay attention
Linger and loaf
Soft heart
Open arms
Awake and aware
Poetry and prose
Lens of love

“But to live is to be conscious. To walk through a field of flowers and stop to feel the softness of each petal, to inhale the perfume of each blossom.”― Terah Shelton Harris, Where the Wildflowers Grow

Jun 30

Gaze and Stance

“May today bring us simple things in simple packages. Easy-to-use things. Things we can tuck into our hearts and don’t require instructions or batteries. Simple things like love and peace, like comfort and joy.”― Mary Davis, Every Day Spirit: A Daybook of Wisdom, Joy and Peace

“Resistance comes in many guises, the most common symptoms being worry, fear and the need to maintain control.”― Mary Davis, Every Day Spirit: A Daybook of Wisdom, Joy and Peace

Yield
Gaze longer
Stance of peace
Catch and release
Fluidity, ease of water
Through, over, around rocks
Simple ways, daily practices
Delight and bliss
Emergence, slow and steady
Peace, light, joy
Rising within, spilling into the world.

“May we be at peace in our hearts. May we be at peace in our homes. May we be at peace with each other. May we imagine peace in our world.”― Mary Davis, Every Day Spirit: A Daybook of Wisdom, Joy and Peace

Jun 29

The Blessedness of Things

“Nature is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”― Blaise Pascal

“Now I will do nothing but listen.” – Walt Whitman

Summer calls us again and again.
Pause.
Sit.
Look. Listen. Linger.
Longer. Often. Rigorously.
There is a blessedness woven through each day.
To partake requires attention, reverence, yielding.

“the blessedness lying at the heart of things.” – Aldous Huxley

Jun 28

1 Comment

Creation Speaks, Listen

“Why struggle to open a door between us when the whole wall is an illusion?”― Rumi

“These small moments of gentleness offer mercy and grace that we can touch, taste, and feel. And they recall the great hope underneath each moment of our lives: the hope that beauty will indeed save the world, that God, by his grace, will finally reestablish us and all things. Creation speaks its comfortable words over us.”— Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience

Slightly gentler.
Oneness spilling into peace.
Layers and nuance.
Of beauty, grace, hope.
Abase and abound.
Duty of delight.

“We have many responsibilities in this life, but among them we must recall that we also have the blessed responsibility to take up those things that make life ever so slightly gentler.”— Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience

Jun 27

Mindful or Mind Full?

“Overthinking is not a sign of intelligence – it’s a thief of clarity.” – Arsalan Yousufzai

“A crowded mind
Leaves no space
For a peaceful heart.” – Christine Evangelou

The job of play
Of no place to be but here
Now
Losing track of time
Checking nothing off the list
Not running ahead
Nor lagging behind
Present, awake, spacious
Resting mind, peaceful heart
May you dance here today.

“Now that your worry has proved such an unlucrative business,
Why not find a better job?” – Hafez

Jun 26

Nectar of Peace

“Over and over in the butterfly we see the idea of transcendence. In the forest we see not the inert but the aspiring. In water that departs forever and forever returns, we experience eternity.”― Mary Oliver, Long Life: Essays and Other Writings

“On the windless days, when the maples have put forth their deep canopies, and the sky is wearing its new blue immensities, and the wind has dusted itself not an hour ago in some spicy field and hardly touches us as it passes by, what is it we do? We lie down and rest upon the generous earth. Very likely we fall asleep.”― Mary Oliver, Long Life: Essays and Other Writings

Beauty and grace aplenty.
Pay attention.
Gaze.
Wander.
Lie down.
Transcend.
Flow with the river.
Floating with delight like the butterfly.
Peace.
Seek, offer, receive.

“Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Jun 25

Harness of WEIGHT

“Such weight, on the earth, is on our shoulders: gravity keeping us at home. But on the water we shake off the harness of weight; we glide; we are passengers of a sleek ocean bird with its single white wing filled with wind.”― Mary Oliver, Long Life: Essays and Other Writings

“What does it mean, say the words, that the earth is so beautiful? And what shall I do about it? What is the gift that I should bring to the world? What is the life that I should live?”― Mary Oliver, Long Life: Essays and Other Writings

What to put down.
Thoughts to rethink.
Assumptions to discard.
Kindness to offer.
Delight to bear.
To glide with grace.
Dance with light.
Dabble with joy.
Defy gravity.
Shake off the harness of weight.

“That’s the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. “Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?”― Mary Oliver, Long Life: Essays and Other Writings

Jun 24

Radiating Peace

“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.”― Jelaluddin Rumi , The Essential Rumi

“A balanced inner calmness radiates from a peaceful centre. It neither craves others’ approval nor rejects others’ presence. It neither pulls towards nor pushes away. It has a reverent attitude towards life and all its inhabitants.”― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

Water
Stillness
Flow
Buoyancy
Waves
Rhythm
Tides
Contracting and expanding
Deep breath in
Full breath out
Deep presence
Fullness of attention
Radiating peace.

“This is the messiness of life – that we all carry multitudes, so must sit with the shifts. We are complicated creatures, and ultimately, the balance comes from this understanding. Be water. Flowing, flexible and soft. Subtly powerful and open. Wild and serene. Able to accept all changes, yet still led by the pull of steady tides. It is enough.”― Victoria Erickson

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