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Posts from the ‘Awe’ Category

Dec 6

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Daily Radical Amazement

“Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing”― Camille Pissarro

“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ….get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”― Abraham Joshua Heschel

Struck by…
Wonder
Beauty
Awe
Kindness
Reverence
Laughter
Gratitude
Delight
Frolic
Grace
Radical amazement woven into ordinary days.

“People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state–it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle…. Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.”― Abraham Joshua Heschel

Nov 14

Sacred Spaces, In and Out

“It seems that intuitive listening requires us to still our minds until the beauty of things older than our minds can find us.”― Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What Is Sacred

“Let all your thinks be thanks.”― W.H. Auden

Within, to heart, not head
Venturing out, beauty abound
Enter the stream
At ease in the flow
Stay here for a spell
Sacred spaces, of awe and wonder
Tune out the noise to listen.

“Now, I want only to give away all that I’m blessed to know and disappear in the stream.”― Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What Is Sacred

Nov 6

Full of Magical Things

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”― W.B. Yeats

“The only place to begin is where I am, and whether by desire or disaster, I am here. My being here is not dependent on my recognition of the fact. I am here anyway. But it might help if I could learn to look around.”― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

For sharper senses
Quick laughter
Capacity for awe and wonder
To learn, relearn, learn anew
To look around
Sight to see sacred spaces
On the holy ground of ordinary days.

“May we find our foundation in the work of Love; demanding, tiring, true and human and holy.”― Pádraig Ó Tuama, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community

Oct 21

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World in a Leaf

“It’s possible to understand the world from studying a leaf. You can comprehend the laws of aerodynamics, mathematics, poetry and biology through the complex beauty of such a perfect structure.
It’s also possible to travel the whole globe and learn nothing.”
― Joy Harjo, The Woman Who Fell from The Sky: Poems

“Bless the poets, the workers for justice,
the dancers of ceremony, the singers of heartache,
the visionaries, all makers and carriers of fresh
meaning—We will all make it through,
despite politics and wars, despite failures
and misunderstandings. There is only love.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

Proximity and attention
Inquiry and perusal
Curiosity and imagination
Awe and wonder
Finding the world in a leave rippling with color
A flower breaking earth
The pulse of a poem
With enthusiasm, anticipation, hope, delight
Fresh morning, new meaning.

“Gather strength, pull it in
Be right where you are.”
― Joy Harjo, An American Sunrise

Sep 20

Astonishment and Delight

“Every dew wet apple blossom, every garden plot filled with creeping flowers and weeds, each crimson leaf, each sparkle in a newly white morning – each nuance of creation offers up a sense of place and rhythm.”― Heidi Barr, Woodland Manitou: To Be on Earth

“We applaud in silent awe
at how something as simple
as the alignment of
water
trees
light
creates a masterpiece
every single day,
just by existing.”
― Heidi Barr, Cold Spring Hallelujah

Color, light, nuance
Astonishment, delight, awe
Patiently waiting to be found, held
Already here and now
Woven in the ordinary present
Awaiting our awakening
Backdrop to forefront
Attention, noticing, proximity
Clean your glasses
Look again.

“What i want in life
is an aptitude for astonishment
room for unanticipated delight.”
― Heidi Barr, Cold Spring Hallelujah

Sep 18

Blade of Grass, Slice of Sky

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

“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

Proximity, within reach
Look longer, gaze
Pay attention, joyously
Make room for reverence, awe, quiet
Invite and let wonder in

“The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”― Henry Miller

Sep 8

Layers of Wonder and Beauty

 

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”― Rumi

“The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you
Don’t go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,
The door is round and open
Don’t go back to sleep!”― Rumi

Awe and delight
Slow and ease
Layers of beauty and wonder
On this very ground
In the world too full to talk about
Diamonds around your neck
Fields of gold

“You wander from room to room
Hunting for the diamond necklace
That is already around your neck!”― Rumi

Aug 9

Trifecta – Awe, Wonder, Joy

“Stay in awe of life. The little things are the big things. Awareness is a fundamental shift in personal identity and experiencing your world with joy.”― Richie Norton

Awe by James Crews

“It’s a shiver that climbs the trellis
of the spine, each tingle a bright white
morning glory breaking into blossom
beneath the skin. It can happen anywhere,
anytime, even finding this sleeve of ice
worn by a branch all morning, now fallen
on a bed of snow. You can choose to pause,
pick it up, hold the cold thing in your hand
or not. Few tell us that wonder and awe
are decisions we make daily, hourly,
minute by minute in the tiny offices
of the heart—tilting the head to look up
at every tree turned into a chandelier
by light striking ice in just the right way.”

Awe and wonder
Delight and laughter
Praise and gratitude
May you dance with each and all daily
Waltz and polka
Nice and easy
Aware and awake.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Jul 23

Rooted and Rising

“Springtimes have needed you. And there are stars expecting you to notice them.”― Anita Barrows, A Year with Rilke: Daily Readings from the Best of Rainer Maria Rilke

“Between yourself
& the beloved, between yourself & your joy,
the riverbank swaying with wildflowers, the shaft
of sunlight on the rock, the song.
Will you pass through it now, will you let it consume
whatever solidness this is
you call your life, & send
you out, a tremor of heat,
a radiance, a changed
flickering thing?”
― Anita Barrows

Summon awe
Seek wonder
Hunt joy
Offer peace
Attention, reverence, imagination
Yield, open, embrace
Spacious, gracious, delight
Root and rise.

“To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe — to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it — is a wonder beyond words.”― Joanna Macy

Jul 10

Sacred Spaces and Places

“Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again.” – Joseph Campbell

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on a purely physical plane will have resonances with our innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” – Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Walk the path.
Enjoy the journey.
Open to surprise.
Still growing.
Unfolding.
Becoming.
One beautiful day at a time.
Gratitude in this imperfect, unplanned, unexpected, different or same place.
Not in what was, what should have been or what might be.
In now.
This sacred space.
Dive in.

“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.” – Joseph Campbell

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