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Jul 15

Take the Long Cut

“Pay attention to the beauty surrounding you. – Anne Lamott

“When hope is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and opens.” – A Anne Lamott

Inches and hours
Anticipation and invitation
Attention and reverence
Take the long cut
Go off trail too.

“Nothing can be done but by inches. I write out my life hour by hour, word by word . . . imagining the existence of something uncreated this poem our lives.”― Adrienne Rich, Diving Into the Wreck

Jul 14

Sunshine Swimming

“When you regain a sense of your life as a journey of discovery, you return to rhythm with yourself. When you take the time to travel with reverence, a richer life unfolds before you. Moments of beauty begin to braid your days.”― John O’Donohue, Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

“Awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.
Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.
Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon.
Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to follow its path.
Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame.
May anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.
Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
Be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.” – John O’Donohue

May beauty braid your day.
Wonder wander in, take your hand, come follow me.
Awe rise inviting reverence in.
Open hands, soft heart, quiet mind.

“When we approach with reverence, great things decide to approach us. Our real life comes to the surface and its light awakens the concealed beauty in things. When we walk on the earth with reverence, beauty will decide to trust us. The rushed heart and arrogant mind lack the gentleness and patience to enter that embrace.”― John O’Donohue, Beauty: A Study of Beauty in Celtic Spirituality and the Human Spirit

Jul 13

Endless Proper Work

“The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion . . . open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony.”― Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red

“Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.”― Susan Sontag

It’s Monday.
Stay here.
Not skipping to Friday.
To tasks.
To busy.
To rushing.
To the next thing.
Bypassing this thing, this day.
Abide and invite.
Be present and participate.
Inquire and listen.
There’s more.
So much more.
Right here.
Right now.
Endless and proper work.

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”― Mary Oliver

Jul 12

Begin, Repeat, Delight

“One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began” – Mary Oliver

“Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields…Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.”― Mary Oliver

Good morning sunshine
Begin
And keep beginning
Again and again
New paths
Travel lightly
Grounded on grace
Sunrise to sunset
Abundance and awe.

“Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.”― Mary Oliver, Evidence: Poems

Jul 11

Secret Signature

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“If you allow yourself to be the person that you are, then everything will come into rhythm. If you live the life you love, you will receive shelter and blessings. Sometimes the great famine of blessing in and around us derives from the fact that we are not living the life we love, rather we are living the life that is expected of us. We have fallen out of rhythm with the secret signature and light of our own nature.” – John O’Donohue, Anam Cara

Be kind.
To self.
Spilling over to others.
Presence daily.
Graciousness, generosity, gratitude.
Becoming and unfolding.
Beautifully, imperfectly, authentically.
Belonging and worthiness.
Time and timing.
Questions and answers.
Unknowing and knowing.
Intuition and trust.
Armour of light.
Rooted in joy.
Blooming in brilliant color.

“Do we dare to be ourselves? That is the question that counts.”― Pablo Casals

And do we dare to let others be themselves and respond in love and kindness.

Jul 10

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Flower Dust Sprinkles

“The morning air was like a new dress. That made her feel the apron tied around her waist. She untied it and flung it on a low bush beside the road and walked on, picking flowers and making a bouquet… From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything.”― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“Mystery is the essence of divinity”― Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road

Flower dust and divinity.
Color and delight.
Laughter spilling into joy.
Put on a new dress.
Breath in the morning air.
Peace, beauty, grace.
Journey of loving and living.
On the path of this day.

“There is two things everybody got to find out for theirselves. They got to find out about love and they got to find out about living.”― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

Jul 9

Sonnet of this Day

“Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. – Mrs. Whatsit”― Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

Made new each morning.
Minute, hour for the taking.
With a shift in thought.
A tilt of the head.
Listening, abiding, reverence.
Write your sonnet.
Of today.

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

Jul 8

Emergence in the Pause

“There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep. ”
― Elizabeth Bishop

“Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.”― Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation

In the pause, stillness
Gaze
Abide
Release
Reset
Slow
Mindfulness spilling into grace, gratitude
Anchoring
Patterns reshape
New stories emerge
Narrative wanders off path
Peace, delight, anticipation
In the paragraph on the blank page of this day.

“In our frantic search for something to quench our thirst, we overlook the water all around us and drive ourselves into exile from our own lives. ”― Sharon Salzberg

Jul 7

Slight Shift, Quiet Eyes

“look at the world with quiet eyes.”― Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation

“Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope – a slight change, and all patterns alter.”― Sharon Salzberg

Summer the stage
Slow and savor
Kaleidoscope of color
Bountiful beauty
Vibrancy and growth
Quiet eyes
Soft heart
Travel light
Lovingkindness, peace, ease.

“Restore your attention or bring it to a new level by dramatically slowing down whatever you’re doing.”― Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation

Jul 6

Carried by Surprise

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

“That the soft overcomes the hard, and the yielding overcomes the resistant, is a fact known by all, but practiced by few.”― Lao Tse

Softening
Yielding
Pause
Grounding
Flowing
Slowing
Response rather than reaction
Unfolding
Unhindered
At attention
Witnessing and participating
No rearview mirror
No crystal ball
Anchored
In this day alone.

“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

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