Skip to content

Posts from the ‘Beauty’ Category

Jun 5

Drink in Beauty

“Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for all eternity.” – Oscar Wilde

“Set wide the window. Let me drink the day.”― Edith Wharton, Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verses

Enter this day.
Fresh and new.
Blank canvas.
Empty cup.
Ready to be filled with shape, color and hue.
In the details, in the ordinary, in the moment.
Rid yourself of old and sameness.
Empty your cup to be filled again and again.
Hope, enthusiasm, joy, delight.
Ours for the taking, receiving, and sharing.
Enter this day new and come out changed.
Drink in the beauty.
Spill out awe.

“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.” – Ray Bradbury

May 18

Radiant Exclamation Point

“There’s a sunrise and a sunset every single day, and they’re absolutely free. Don’t miss so many of them.”― Jo Walton

A Day (I’ll Tell You How The Sun Rose)
by Emily Dickinson

“I’ll tell you how the sun rose, —
A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.

The hills untied their bonnets,
The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
“That must have been the sun!”

But how he set, I know not.
There seemed a purple stile
Which little yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while

Till when they reached the other side,
A dominie in gray
Put gently up the evening bars,
And led the flock away.”

From sunrise to sunset.
The in between.
May the moments be filled with awe, wonder, inquiry.
Aware of fleeting time.
Awake to each moment passing.
Participating in the day.
Noticing beauty.
Fostering connection.
Entering the river.
Rising and setting.
Ebb and flow.
Exclamation point on day’s end.

“The sun,–the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man–burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray.”― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

May 15

Beauty Running Wild

“May you always be the one who notices the little things that make the light pour through, and may they always remind you: There is more to life and there is more to you.” ― Morgan Harper Nichols

“When you start to feel like things should have been better this year, remember the mountains and valleys that got you here. They are not accidents, and those moments weren’t in vain. You are not the same. You have grown and you are growing. You are breathing, you are living, you are wrapped in endless, boundless grace. And things will get better. There is more to you than yesterday.”― Morgan Harper Nichols

May today bring you joy.
Let awe in to do its work.
Beauty, discernment, awakening.
Yesterday the road traveled.
Today a new path.
Tomorrow, break trail.
Grace, love, light.
Notice the little things.
Enter the river running through and around you.
Life is happening.
Participate.
Run wild.

“and perhaps
what made her beautiful
was not her appearance
or what she achieved,
but in her love
and in her courage,
and her audacity
to believe:
no matter
the darkness
around her,
Light ran wild
within her,
and that was the way
she came alive,
and it showed up
in everything.”
― Morgan Harper Nichols

May 14

Phenomenal Women’s Day

“A mother is your first friend, your best friend, your forever friend.” — Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“A warrior believes in an end she can’t see and fights for it. A warrior never gives up. A warrior fights for those weaker than herself. It sounds like motherhood to me.” — Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale

For Moms
For women who love unconditionally, who may not be Moms for whatever reason
Those with us and those who have gone on ahead to wait for us, who remain in our hearts
Tough, resilient, soft, tender, unselfish, fierce, bold
Models of unconditional love, grace and light
To all of the women in our life who walk beside us on our journey
To all mothers who nurture, hold, seek peace but will fight when necessary, anchored in love and protection
Who teach us “Yes!” to life and love
Honored and revered today and each day
Happy Mother’s Day!

“It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.” – Maya Angelou

May 8

Long Thoughts

“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”― Herman Hesse, Bäume: Betrachtungen und Gedichte

Creation from an acorn, a pine cone, seed.
Shade from a tree.
Sanctuary in a forest.
Waking of souls.
Joy awakened.
Beauty flourishing.

“Things have a life of their own,” the gypsy proclaimed with a harsh accent. “It’s simply a matter of waking up their souls.”― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Apr 26

A Way of Being

“Wisps of clouds scattered across the heavens, as if brought to their place by a great sigh.”― Gina Marinello-Sweeney, Peter

“God’s time is slow, patient, and kind and welcomes friendship; it is a way of being in the fullness of time that is not determined by productivity, success, or linear movements toward personal goals. It is a way of love, a way of the heart.”― John Swinton, Becoming Friends of Time

Fullness of time.
Slow. Steady. Through.
Become a friend of God’s time, of the Author.
Big as the sky.
Written in blue and puffs of white.
Grand as the interior of your soul.
Broad. Wide. Deep.
A great sigh.
A way of being.
Ever-present.

“There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.”― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Apr 4

How the Light Gets In

“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” – Leonard Cohen

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”― John Lubbock, The Use Of Life

A time out.
A break.
Lighten up, opt for rest over rules.
Put down habits and tasks to get a new view.
Ease, nothing to carry.
Look up and around.
Breathe. Sit. Witness.
The light coming in.

“Every person needs to take one day away.  A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future.  Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence.  Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.  Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.”― Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now

Mar 3

Wood or Stone

“Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.”― Huang Po, The Zen Teaching of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind

“The way out is through the door. Why is it that no one will use this method?”― Confucius

May you see the door rather than a wall.
And pass through.
Spring hiding in winter.
The mountains from the bottom and top.
Captured by beauty.
Held in color.
Commas rather than periods.
A softening ground beneath your feet.
The sun hanging out with the clouds and blue.
Expanding rather than contracting.
Inviting, allowing, crossing thresholds to wide open spaces.
Bridges to joy, wonder and delight.
Motionless as wood or stone to see what is present.

“Despite the forecast, live like it’s spring.”― Lilly Pulitzer

Jan 31

A Little Bird, Broken Out of the Egg

“In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence.”― Robert Lynd

“Pan, who and what art thou?” he cried huskily.
“I’m youth, I’m joy,” Peter answered at a venture, “I’m a little bird that has broken out of the egg.”― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

A lunch trip to the Como Conservatory to get a taste of the tropics in 10 below harvested a lot of beautiful flower pictures that will make their way into posts over the next few weeks.
On the way out, I noticed the door to the tropics room that I’ve never seen before so I wandered in.
Birds dancing about, water flowing, green ablaze.
A field trip, a recess, a playground of wonder and beauty.
You don’t have to pack your bags and get on a flight.
Find the silence, adventure and color in ordinary days and knit them tightly into the fabric of your being.
A conservatory, museum, a class await your arrival.
No permission slip required.
Awe guaranteed.

“Without birds, where would we have learned that there can be song in the heart?”― Hal Borland

Jan 29

Same Landscape, Fresh Eyes, New Horizon

“Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.”― Lao Tzu

“There is no wealth but life.” – John Ruskin

Leave space and margin today.
For discovery and unknowing.
For seeking and searching.
Unfamiliar in the familiar.
The question behind the question.
The place beneath the surface.

For wonder and awe.
For serendipity and surprise.
For expansion and deepening.
For nuance and hue.
For color and symphony.
For belonging and home.

Invite, allow, embrace.
Put down, pick up, tread softly.
Compose, create, connect.
A holy ease, sacred ground.

Imagination and luminosity.
Light and shadow.
Contour and dimension.

No calculating, counting, or comparing.
Suspend opinion, assumption and judgment.
Narrative, story, unfolding.
Swept up in the current, flow, tide.

Same landscape, fresh eyes, new horizon.
Brimming in abundance.
Spilling over into joy.

“I may not know
What a day may bring
But I know
Who brings the day.” – Miracle Power Lyrics by We the Kingdom

« Older Entries
%d bloggers like this: