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Posts from the ‘Beauty’ Category

Aug 13

The Good Things

“Animals praise a good day, a good hunt. They praise rain if they’re thirsty. That’s prayer. They don’t live an unconscious life, they simply have no language to talk about these things. But they are grateful for the good things that come along.” – Mary Oliver

“Beauty is whatever gives joy.” – Edna St. Vincent Millay

Acknowledge the struggle.
Move through it.
Be patient, especially with your harshest critic, yourself.
Invite and welcome joy to come alongside to lighten the load.
Find delight in simple things.
Holding it all.
Praise and prayer.
Gratitude in the sighs.
Life spins us around.
Take a foothold in joy.
Rejoice in the strands of beauty woven through this very day.

“If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.” – Eleonora Duse

Aug 8

As You Will

“From a little spark may burst a flame.” – Dante Alighieri

“Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.” – Thomas Carlyle

The world is bursting with color.
The air fresh with a soft breeze.
The canvas of summer ablaze.
Find rest, let rest find you.
Absorb the colors, and the sun.
Shift your attention.
Delight in this season.
Seize this time.
Color. Beauty. Rest.

“Everyday can be extraordinary
And ripe,
Like a flower burst,
If the will is there.”― Scott Hastie

Aug 6

A Pocketful and More

“Looking at beauty in the world, is the first step of purifying the mind.” – Amit Ray

“There area a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, everyone of them sufficient.” – Marilynne Robinson

Pocketful
Cups
Sips
Slices
Corners
Crevices

Blooms
Sunrises
Sunsets
Smiles
Laughter

The measures and metrics of a good life
Finding joy in small spaces, ordinary days
It all adds up
We just need to learn to count differently, more completely
May you enjoy a pocketful of ease, contentment, and delight today.

“It’s a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things you lack.” – Germany Kent

Jul 29

In All Things

“There is the music of Heaven in all things.”― Hildegard of Bingen

“Glance at the sun. See the moon and the stars. Gaze at the beauty of the Earth’s greenings. Now, think.”― Hildegard von Bingen

Observation.
Inquiry.
Silence.
Reverence.
Awe.
Wonder.
Beauty.

The sun.
The moon.
The stars.
Pink flowers, all flowers.
Music in all things.
When we listen with our soul.
See with our heart.
Love with no conditions.

“The soul is the greening life force of the flesh, for the body grows and prospers through her, just as the earth becomes fruitful when it is moistened. The soul humidifies the body so it does not dry out, just like the rain which soaks into the earth.”― Hildegarde of Bingen

Jul 22

Sipping the Nectar

“Moment is a flower. Mindfulness is sipping the nectar of that flower.”― Amit Ray, Mindfulness Living in the Moment – Living in the Breath

“If you seek flaws,
you’ll find flaws,
if you seek beauty,
you’ll find that too”
― Donna Ashworth, I Wish I Knew: Poems to Soothe Your Soul & Strengthen Your Spirit

In the cracks, corners, and crevices.
Ordinary moments.
Available to all.
Beauty blooming inviting us in.
To be held.
To be found.
To be buoyed.
Seek beauty.
You will find it alongside the flawed.
Choose well.

“live your life flawed and beautiful.”
― Donna Ashworth, I Wish I Knew: Poems to Soothe Your Soul & Strengthen Your Spirit

Jul 16

Common

“Laughter is a sunbeam of the soul.”― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness — just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.”― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder: On Wisdom and Virtues

May our eyes be clear to see and hold everyday blessings.
To find joy in simple things.
Discover awe again and again in the sunrise and sunset.
Put down worry.
Laugh often.
Love well.
Each day.
Common things, extraordinary wonder.

“Worry does not keep it from raining tomorrow, but it does keep it from being sunny today.”― Shannon L. Alder

Jul 12

Ever-Blooming

“All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.”― Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

“Perennials are ever-blooming, relevant people of all ages who know what’s happening in the world, stay current with technology and have friends of all ages. We get involved, stay curious, mentor others, and are passionate, compassionate, creative, confident, collaborative, global-minded risk takers.”― Chip Conley, Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder

Be a perennial.
Ever-blooming.
Expanding, creating, contributing, participating.
Stay in the game, in tune, engaged, curious.
Not defined by age or others.
Learning and growing.
Heart full, spilling into joy.
Becoming new each day.

“Fear dims when you learn things.”― Lois Lowry, Son

Jun 28

Greet with Joy

“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”― Henry David Thoreau

“If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal- that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.”― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Greet this day with joy.
Go first, don’t wait to see what this day brings.
A change in perspective.
A current of enthusiasm.
A smile and nod.
An opening and embrace.
What comes will come but it will be different if we are different.
Common hours transformed into extraordinary experiences.
What do you see?

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

Jun 27

There is a Field

“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

“Beauty isn’t all about just nice loveliness. . . . Beauty is about more rounded, substantial becoming. So I think beauty, in that sense, is about an emerging fullness, a greater sense of grace and elegance, a deeper sense of depth, and also a kind of homecoming for the enriched memory of your unfolding life.”― Aundi Kolber, Try Softer

Abundance even in difficulty.
Color and bloom abound.
See it all, especially beauty.
To be reminded often of our life unfolding to newness.
To change and be changed, overcoming resistance.
To do it afraid, watching fear diminish through action.
Fresh day, empty page to write your story anew.
Wide open fields, soft breeze, dancing color.
Feel the pulse of life.
Enter it.

“May I have the courage today To live the life that I would love, To postpone my dream no longer But do at last what I came here for And waste my heart on fear no more.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

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

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