Aug 19
“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
“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
“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
“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
“…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
“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
“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
“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
“To the dark nights, the relief of the moon. The soft earth that forms to cradle the shape of my foot. To the crickets and the birds who sing our world into harmony. To the flowers that wish to sit on my windowsill, the trees that grow to reach the most sunlight. To the grass that sways and soothes. To the webs the spider tirelessly builds overnight only to be torn down in the daylight. To the life that pulses in exaltation below my feet every day that I am alive. To the portal it offers into a remembrance of our wholeness. To our source of unconditional love.”
― Sarah Blondin, Heart Minded: How to Hold Yourself and Others in Love
“In a world that lives like a fist
mercy is not more than waking
with your hands open.”― Mark Nepo
Open hands
Soft heart
Clear eyes
Attentive ears
Sacred, reverence, awe
Dance and delight
Harmony of presence
Altar of this day.
“Mysteriously, as elusive as it is, this moment–where the eye is what it sees, where the heart is what it feels–this moment shows us that what is real is sacred”― Mark Nepo
“Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair…”― susan polis schutz
“Bless you who are discovering that
summer was never something to
conquer, but something to notice –
the peaches, the porch light, the
smell of rain before dinner.
May you leave a few things undone
on purpose, trusting that not every
empty hour is asking to be filled.
Bless you who return to the same
small practices until they become
their own kind of gratitude.
May you remember that a good life
is rarely made of extraordinary days,
but ordinary ones that were fully
received.” – Kate Bowler
In the noticing, delight
In the undoing, creation
In the in-betweens, joy
In the ordinary days, communion.
Fully received.
“Water is fluid, soft & yielding but water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield … what is soft is strong.”― Lao-tzu
