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Posts from the ‘Beauty’ Category

Dec 19

Big Sky

“Excuse me while I kiss the sky.” – Jimi Hendrix

“Aim for the sky, but move slowly, enjoying every step along the way. It is all those little steps that make the journey complete.” – Chanda Kochhar

As you walk the earth, may you pause frequently to see the big sky.
Anchored in now and hopeful for tomorrow.
Gratitude doesn’t deny struggles.
It makes us look at the big sky to see the whole picture.
Where blessings and burdens reside together.
In the landscape of life, beauty resides awaiting attention, offering an embrace.
Joy for the taking.

“O God, we praise Thee for keeping us till this day, and for the full assurance that Thou wilt never let us go.” – Charles Spurgeon

Dec 18

Find Glory

“The idea of finding things out, I hope that will stay with me until I drop.” – Robyn Davidson

“If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you’ll never enjoy the sunshine.” – Morris West

As the year comes to a close, reflect, ponder, connect.
See the patterns, observe the paths taken and not taken that bring you to this place and space.
Not the highlights alone but the bumps, delays, detours.
We live twice when we live awake in the moment and in creating meaning from the journey.
In the waiting, wilt and wither, renewal is in the works, unfolding and unfurling.
Enjoy the sunshine, weather the storms when they come, not too early.
Find glory in the details of this very day, alone.

“The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.” – William Morris

Dec 16

Ordinary and Available

“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

Dec 11

Winter Wonder and Wander

“Life meanders like a path through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.”― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Wintering is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.

Find the rhythm of winter and dance rather than box it.
Ease follows resistance.
Clarity comes with quiet acceptance.
Entering new space, the process of transformation becomes apparent.
The season of preparing, adapting, slowing, reflecting, replenishing.
Caterpillar work.
Renewal and metamorphosis.
Butterfly training.
May you embrace the gift of wintering.
The precipice for spring.
Do the unfashionable things.
Enter the crucible.

“It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order. Doing these deeply unfashionable things — slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting — is a radical act now, but it’s essential.” – Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

Full interview with Katherine May on the On Being podcast.

Dec 4

Cotton Candy

“Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.” – Joseph Addison

Go
Beneath the surface
Ascend
Beyond the temporal
Rise
Above the restraint
To the cotton candy clouds
An eagle’s view
Soar, see and float
Beauty, grace and gratitude
See them more and more.

“The more often we see the things around us – even the beautiful and wonderful things – the more they become invisible to us. That is why we often take for granted the beauty of this world: the flowers, the trees, the birds, the clouds – even those we love. Because we see things so often, we see them less and less.” – Joseph B. Wirthlin

Dec 2

Tune In and Listen

“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

“Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.” – W  Wayne Dyer

Enjoy this day.
This one alone.
Get out and expand your view.
Tune in and listen to that still small voice.
The whisper, the longing, the song.
Walk lightly and aware.
Capture and cast light.

“I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.” – George Washington Carver

Nov 24

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Still Waters

“The Lord is my shepherd, shall not want; he makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” – Psalm 23

“So much of our lives takes place in our heads – in memory or imagination, in speculation or interpretation – that sometimes I feel that I can change my life by changing the way I look at it.”― Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere

In memory and imagination;
In speculation and interpretation;
In thoughts and words;
In stillness and observation;
Pause and let still waters, still and fill your soul;
To feel the expanse, depth and richness of life;
To shift your view to see the same differently;
Sit still and allow stillness to take you on an adventure to yourself.
Slow. Attention. Stillness.

“In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.”― Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere

Nov 23

A Thing Divine

“The earth laughs in flowers.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Gratitude by Lucy Maud Montgomery

“I thank thee, friend, for the beautiful thought
That in words well chosen thou gavest to me,
Deep in the life of my soul it has wrought
With its own rare essence to ever imbue me,
To gleam like a star over devious ways,
To bloom like a flower on the drearest days­
Better such gift from thee to me
Than gold of the hills or pearls of the sea.

For the luster of jewels and gold may depart,
And they have in them no life of the giver,
But this gracious gift from thy heart to my heart
Shall witness to me of thy love forever;
Yea, it shall always abide with me
As a part of my immortality;
For a beautiful thought is a thing divine,
So I thank thee, oh, friend, for this gift of thine.”

Choose your words well.
Plant seeds of kindness, joy and light.
Reap the harvest of good thoughts and deeds.
Flowers in bloom, laughter in color.
Gratitude and its expression, a divine thing.

Nov 16

Hem of Heaven

“And now in the serenity and quiet of this lovely place, touch the depths of truth, feel the hem of Heaven.” – Adlai Stevenson II

“Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.” – Virginia Woolf

Extraordinary is woven into ordinary days.
Beauty, light, color.
Slow long enough to look up and take it in.
Replenish and be filled.
Carry it forward into the world to amplify, magnify, multiply.
Feed the soul, lift the spirit to choose better.
Witness the hem of heaven.

Kindness over criticism.
Understanding over judgment.
Listening over solving.
Conversation over lecture.
Empathy over arrogance.
Learning over finished.
Optimism over cynicism.
Forgiveness over resentment.
Spirit over ego.
Inquiry over answers.
Deeper over surface.
Encouragement over opinion.
Love, without condition or measure.
Witness the hem of heaven so you can be the hem of heaven now and again.

“Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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