“I have learned that faith means trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse.”― Philip Yancey
“One of the biggest regrets of life, I think, is a sense of having gone on the trip but missed the adventure.”― Gary Haugen
Don’t bypass, skip, miss the adventure.
Say “no” often to make room for more “yes’s”
The right things, ordinary moments, beauty woven in each day.
Detours, delays, rerouting all apart of the journey, not inconveniences, but inflection points.
People, places, spaces to enter, reside and celebrate this very short ride.
No regrets.
“If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.” – Toni Morrison
“The new life into which we are baptized is lived out in days, hours, and minutes. God is forming us into a new people. And the place of that formation is in the small moments of today.”― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life
Get a new perspective, a fresh view, a different angle
Loosen your grip, open your heart
Release thoughts of scarcity, comparison, someday when, not enough
In moments, in this day, and all it took to arrive
You are more than enough, complete and imperfect
Ride the air
Pockets of joy and delight
Sit here awhile for the work to be completed in you.
“What’s your best discovery?” asked the mole.
“That I’m enough as I am,” said the boy.”
― Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
“In moments of insecurity and crisis, shoulds and oughts don’t really help; they just increase the shame, guilt, pressure, and likelihood of backsliding. It’s the deep yeses that carry us through. It’s that deeper something we are strongly for that allows us to wait it out. It’s someone in whom we absolutely believe and to whom we commit. In plain language, love wins out over guilt any day. It is sad that we settle for the short-run effectiveness of shaming people instead of the long-term life benefits of true transformation.”― Richard Rohr, The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Disorder, Reorder
“Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), the great American essayist, said “nothing great is ever achieved without enthusiasm.” What a deconstructed culture lacks, because of its deep cynicism and pessimism about reality, is a basic confidence and enthusiasm that is necessary to start almost anything.”― Richard Rohr, The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Disorder, Reorder
Wander off path today.
To unknown places within yourself.
Covered up, put away, not done.
Beauty, unfolding, bold.
With wonder, curiosity and joy, let light in.
Break the rules, change the story, allow surprise.
Be transformed.
“Remember: The rules, like streets, can only take you to known places.”― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
“Life is a series of collisions with the future; it is not the sum of what we have been, but what we yearn to be.” – Jose Ortega y Gasset
“The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” – Christopher McCandless
May these words become daily rituals of restoration and energy
Of expansion, not contraction
Of growth and fruition
Mystery, unknowing, adventure
Break trail
Stretch your horizon
“Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” – John Milton
“There is nothing holier in this life of ours than the first consciousness of love, the first fluttering of its silken wings.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Put down fear, worry, assumptions, labels, conclusions before ever starting.
Give people, circumstances, yourself a chance, grace and encouragement.
Move, take a step beyond your limiting thoughts, the past, the need to know everything.
Put things in motion.
Take flight.
A single step, then the next.
Jump, float, fly.
Look up, there’s a big sky.
Use your wings.
“When the darkness is seen as a necessary prelude to the creative light, one is less likely to ascribe frustration to personal inadequacy or label it as bad.” – Daniel Goleman
“You will find truth more quickly through delight than gravity. Let out a little more string on your kite.” – Alan Cohen
“Oh my God, what if you wake up some day, and you’re 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written, or you didn’t go swimming in those warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid?
It’s going to break your heart.
Don’t let this happen.” – Anne Lamott
Take a break from your rules and requirements.
No permission slips.
Let go of mindsets and stories that say you can’t do it or even try it.
Try and fail and do it again.
Fun is a worthy pursuit that compounds joy.
Explore, iterate, slap paint on the canvas.
Never will we regret having too much fun.
We can’t carry everything.
Hold what is necessary and put the rest down.
Imperfect and beautiful.
Dreaming and loitering in delight required daily curriculum.
Fly a kite. Skip rope. Dance the polka.
Small acts of frivolity and radical silliness to unjam, uproot and loosen.
No do-overs. Start today right where you are.
Big. Juicy. Creative. Life.
Let this happen.
“The familiar and the habitual are so falsely reassuring, and most of us make our homes there permanently. The new is always by definition unfamiliar and untested, so God, life, destiny, suffering have to give us a push—usually a big one—or we will not go. Someone has to make clear to us that homes are not meant to be lived in—but only to be moved out from.”— Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
“The excitement lies in the exploration of the world around us.” – Jim Peebles
“To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter… to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in spring – these are some of the rewards of the simple life.” – John Burroughs
In the ordinary and available, life lingers waiting to be found and held.
Explore, inquire, imagine.
Expand your view, lay down judgment and opinion to allow fresh thoughts and ideas to enter.
It’s a new day.
Look around, look longer, look with new eyes.
What will you learn today?
“It is quite amazing how hard the subconscious works when it is made to understand that this life is not a rehearsal, there is no safety net and no assurance of any final closure. It is also quite appalling to realize how catatonic the imagination can become when we hedge our bets, opt for the safer direction at every fork in the path.” – John Burdett
“Over and over, we are broken on the shore of life. Our stubborn egos are knocked around, and our frightened hearts are broken open—not once, and not in predictable patterns, but in surprising ways and for as long as we live.”― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow
“I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.”― Mary Oliver, Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays
When things get heavy, lay them down, even if but for a moment;
Worry left behind dissolves on its own;
Allow light in, a breeze to cool the room;
Gratitude reveals blessings amidst burdens;
No rules or boundaries;
Dream big, deep and wide;
Pursue with rigor;
Let your imagination off leash to run free and with abandon;
Rest on the shore of life and then enter the tide again;
The ebb and flow;
Give into radical joy;
Will and wings;
Defy gravity, take flight.
“Sometimes the simplest and best use of our will is to drop it all and just walk out from under everything that is covering us, even if only for an hour or so—just walk out from under the webs we’ve spun, the tasks we’ve assumed, the problems we have to solve. They’ll be there when we get back, and maybe some of them will fall apart without our worry to hold them up.”― Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have
“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” – Alice Walker
“This world is but a canvas to our imagination.” – Henry David Thoreau
Go into the field
Wide open spaces
Into imagination
Expansiveness
Possibility
Exploration
Adventure
Where the ground and sky unite
The air is fresh and crisp
Open the windows of your mind
Walk through the doors
Allow the walls to fall
Release your spirit to play
Let old and worn fall away
Be refreshed in the present and new
Accept the blessings
Keep becoming who you are within and within reach.
“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” – Joseph Campbell
“Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.” – James M. Barrie
Awaken to see the wonder all around in this very moment.
Ask, pause and listen for answers.
In reach and available.
Assume nothing, allow more.
In wandering, exploration and seeking, we make the journey an adventure.
The process and the outcome are the gifts.
Double blessing.
Wonderland
“It is a person’s unquenchable thirst for wonder
That sets them on their initial quest for truth.
The more doors you open, the smaller you become.
The more places you see and the more people you meet,
The greater your curiosity grows.
The greater your curiosity, the more you will wander.
The more you wander, the greater the wonder.
The more you quench your thirst for wonder,
The more you drink from the cup of life.
The more you see and experience, the closer to truth you become.
The more languages you learn, the more truths you can unravel.
And the more countries you travel, the greater your understanding.
And the greater your understanding, the less you see differences.
And the more knowledge you gain, the wider your perspective,
And the wider your perspective, the lesser your ignorance.
Hence, the more wisdom you gain, the smaller you feel.
And the smaller you feel, the greater you become.
The more you see, the more you love —
The more you love, the less walls you see.
The more doors you are willing to open,
The less close-minded you will be.
The more open-minded you are,
The more open your heart.
And the more open your heart,
The more you will be able to
Send and receive —
Truth and TRUE
Unconditional
LOVE.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
“Everything can be taken from a man or woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor E. Frankl
“Cast Light” is an invitation to release your inner light, your authentic self every day. Choose light and cast it to the world.
Featured Quotes
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”― Mary Oliver
“I do not understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.” — Anne Lamott
