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Aug 21

Altars and Cathedrals of Presence

“Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.”― Alain de Botton

“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

Presence and attention.
Gratitude and grace.
Reverence and awe.
On the sacred ground, holy places, cathedrals and altars of this day.

“When there is nothing left to lose, we find the true self—the self that is whole, the self that is enough, the self that no longer looks to others for definition, or completion, or anything but companionship on the journey.”― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

Aug 20

Art of Harvesting the Day

“We seldom notice how each day is a holy place Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens, Transforming our broken fragments Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“Perhaps the art of harvesting the secret riches of our lives is best achieved when we place profound trust in the act of beginning. Risk might be our greatest ally. To live a truly creative life, we always need to cast a critical look at where we presently are, attempting always to discern where we have become stagnant and where new beginning might be ripening. There can be no growth if we do not remain open and vulnerable to what is new and different. I have never seen anyone take a risk for growth that was not rewarded a thousand times over.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Blessings abundant
Color and light
Beauty woven brilliantly in presence
For eyes to notice
Hands wide open
Heart porous
Art of harvesting it all.

“As clay anchors a tree in light and wind, May your outer life grow from peace within.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Aug 19

Duty of Whimsy

“You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.”― Mary Oliver, Wild Geese

“Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”― Mary Oliver

When, if, then
Falling into…
Now, here, presence

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

Aug 18

Blooming Goodness

“How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change. And how ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us blossom into who we were meant to be.”― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

“It wasn’t ’til I saw my daddy’s name in stone, I knew
It ain’t a question of if they will
It’s how they remember you

Did you stand or did you fall?
Build a bridge or build a wall
Hide your love or give it all
What did you do?

Did you make ’em laugh or make ’em cry?
Did you quit or did you try?
Live your dreams or let ’em die
What did you choose?
When it all comes down
It ain’t if, it’s how they remember you

When you’re down to your last dollar
Will you give or will you take?
When the stiff wind blows the hardest
Will you bend or will you break?” – Rascal Flatts

Fall, get back up. Begin again, and again.
Bridges, not walls.
Laughter, lots of it.
Quit then start over, keep going.
Give generously.
Bending and breaking open.
Do good.
Love well.
Cast light.

“What will matter is the good we did, not the good we expected others to do.”― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

Aug 17

The Great Silence, Soft Voice

“Whatever is happening, whatever is changing, whatever is going or not going according to my plans—I release my hold on all of it. I leave behind who I think I am, who I want to be, what I want the world to be. I come home to the great peace of the present moment,”― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

“May you listen to the voice within the beat even when you are tired. When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead. May every experience in life be a door that opens your heart, expands your understanding, and leads you to freedom. If you are weary, may you be aroused by passion and purpose. If you are blameful and bitter, may you be sweetened by hope and humor. If you are frightened, may you be emboldened by a big consciousness far wiser than your fear. If you are lonely, may you find love, may you find friendship. If you are lost, may you understand that we are all lost, and still we are guided—by Strange Angels and Sleeping Giants, by our better and kinder natures, by the vibrant voice within the beat. May you follow that voice, for This is the way—the hero’s journey, the life worth living, the reason we are here.  ”― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

Senses awakening
Slow over urgency
Soft over hard
Reflection over judgment
Yield over assumption
Praise over complaint
Pause over pass by
Sauntering over speed
Presence over past
Thriving over striving
Peace, praise, delight
Receive and cast light.

“Everything gets sorted out in the Great Silence.”― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

Aug 16

Walking and Waking Up

“Some beautiful paths can’t be discovered without getting lost.”― Erol Ozan

“Walking . . . is how the body measures itself against the earth.”― Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

Walking and wandering
The path, the destination
Beauty the gift
Lost to be found.

“The magic of the street is the mingling of the errand and the epiphany.”― Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

Aug 15

Sweet Honey of Grace

“…when you are convinced that all the exits are blocked, either you take to believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird. The miracle is that the honey is always there, right under your nose, only you were too busy searching elsewhere to realize it. The worst is not death but being blind, blind to the fact that everything about life is in the nature of the miraculous.”― Henry Miller

“Each person is born with an unencumbered spot, free of expectation and regret, free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry; an umbilical spot of grace where we were each first touched by God. It is this spot of grace that issues peace.

To know this spot of Inwardness is to know who we are, not by surface markers of identity, not by where we work or what we wear or how we like to be addressed, but by feeling our place in relation to the Infinite and by inhabiting it. This is a hard lifelong task, for the nature of becoming is a constant filming over of where we begin, while the nature of being is a constant erosion of what is not essential. Each of us lives in the midst of this ongoing tension, growing tarnished or covered over, only to be worn back to that incorruptible spot of grace at our core.

When the film is worn through, we have moments of enlightenment, moments of wholeness, moments of Satori as the Zen sages term it, moments of clear living when inner meets outer, moments of full integrity of being, moments of complete Oneness. And whether the film is a veil of culture, of memory, of mental or religious training, of trauma or sophistication, the removal of that film and the restoration of that timeless spot of grace is the goal of all therapy and education.

Regardless of subject matter, this is the only thing worth teaching: how to uncover that original center and how to live there once it is restored. We call the filming over a deadening of heart, and the process of return, whether brought about through suffering or love, is how we unlearn our way back to God”― Mark Nepo, Unlearning Back to God: Essays on Inwardness, 1985-2005

Unlearning
Unencumbered
Becoming
Sweet honey of grace
Of awe, wonder, reverence
Presence and knowing
In the unknowing.

“I was operating on the unspoken assumption that my inner world would be filled with life, peace, and joy once my external world was perfect.”― John Ortberg, Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You

Aug 14

Abiding Attention

“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

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”― Henry Miller

Today, wide and deep
New things to see
New thoughts to think
New paths to cut
In the wandering, wonder appears.

“Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves.”― Henry Miller

Aug 13

Masters of Joy

“You may not agree, you may not care, but if you are holding this book you should know that of all the sights I love in this world — and there are plenty — very near the top of the list is this one: dogs without leashes.”― Mary Oliver, Dog Songs: Poems

“Or maybe it’s about the wonderful things that may happen if you break the ropes that are holding you.”― Mary Oliver, Dog Songs

Delight complete, begin again
In play
Rapt presence
Simple pleasures
Uncomplicated, undeterred, unwavering
Masters of joy
Teachers of fun and frolic
May I be a good student.

“We meet wonderful people, but lose them
in our busyness.
We’re, as the saying goes, all over the place.
Steadfastness, it seems,
is more about dogs than about us.
One of the reasons we love them so much.”
― Mary Oliver, Dog Songs: Poems

Aug 12

Sacred Gift of Wonder

“We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.”— Father Richard Rohr

“we think that accomplishing things will complete us, when it is experiencing life that will.”― Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Step by step
Tripping, getting back up
Day by day
Fidelity and grace
The middle
In between
Ordinary days
Transformed into extraordinary
Thoughts, words, actions
Hope, joy, work, play, rest, reflection, grit, gratitude, grace
May we recognize beauty, glory, color, nuance, depth, height, simple
Woven, carved, knit, abundant in this day
Disguised in laughter, a flower, a call, holding open a door, a smile and hello
Walking each step of the journey
Awake, aware, with intent and attention.

“May you experience each day as a sacred gift of wonder.” – John O’Donohue

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