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Posts from the ‘Beginnings’ Category

Dec 28

Firing Up the Landscape

“Prayer is a small fire lit to keep cold hands warm. Prayer is a practice that flourishes both with faith and doubt. Prayer is asking, and prayer is sitting. Prayer is the breath. Prayer is not an answer, always, because not all questions can be answered.”― Pádraig Ó Tuama, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community

Red Bird by Mary Oliver

“Red bird came all winter
Firing up the landscape
As nothing else could.
Of course I love the sparrows,
Those dun-colored darlings,
So hungry and so many.
I am a God-fearing feeder of birds,
I know he has many children,
Not all of them bold in spirit.
Still, for whatever reason-
Perhaps because the winter is so long
And the sky so black-blue,
Or perhaps because the heart narrows
As often as it opens-
I am grateful
That red bird comes all winter
Firing up the landscape
As nothing else can do.”

On the way but not arrived
Space between ending and beginning
Hallway between rooms
In this quiet space between the end of the year and the beginning of the new
Holiday hurrying to winter slowing
Reflect and frame
Slow and discard
Plan and allow
Gratitude and grace
Color brighter on the backdrop of the season
Red birds pause
Firing up the landscape
Look around.

“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

Dec 7

North Side of a Mountain

“You see, you are not so soft after all; you are rock and wave and the peeling barks of trees, you are ladybirds and the smell of a garden after the rain. When you put your best foot forward, you are taking the north side of a mountain with you.”― Ella Frances Sanders, Eating the Sun: Small Musings on a Vast Universe

“For what it’s worth… it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you’ve never felt before. I hope you meet people who have a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start over again.”― F. Scott Fitzgerald

May you root and rise in possibilities
Step by step
Day by day
Always unfolding and unfurling
Climbing and loving
Never done.

“There is only one question; how to love this world.”― Mary Oliver, Devotions: A Read with Jenna Pick: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Sep 24

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Always a New Beginning, Always

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“And what, exactly, is that metaphorical thorn for you?”
“It’s madness
to hate all roses
because you got scratched with one thorn,
to give up all dreams
because one of them didn’t come true,
to give up all attempts
because one of them failed.
It’s folly to condemn all your friends
because one has betrayed you,
to no longer believe in love
just because someone was unfaithful
or didn’t love you back,
to throw away all your chances to be happy
because something went wrong.
There will always be another opportunity,
another friend,
another love,
a new strength.
For every end,
there is always a new beginning
And now here is my secret,
a very simple secret:
It is only with the heart
that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

A warm fall has triggered the lilacs to bloom again.
Spring in Fall, Fall in Spring
Seasons woven together.
Beauty and fragrance.
Hope and joy.
Rooted within.
These are what last.
New beginnings.
Growth.
Ever becoming and unfolding, not done or over.
Never, ever, ever, ever, give up on second, third, fourth bloom.
Born again and again.
Time and timing.
The course of a lifetime.

“All grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it.”― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Aug 27

Unfamiliar Gladness

“This is the power of art: The power to transcend our own self-interest, our solipsistic zoom-lens on life, and relate to the world and each other with more integrity, more curiosity, more wholeheartedness.”― Maria Popova

“At watershed moments of upheaval and transformation, we anticipate with terror the absence of the familiar parts of life and of ourselves that are being washed away by the current of change. But we fail to envision the unfamiliar gladness and gratifications the new tide would bring, the unfathomed presences, for our imaginations are bounded by our experience. The unknown awakens in us a reptilian dread that plays out with the same ferocity on scales personal, societal, and civilizational, whether triggered by a new life-chapter or a new political regime or a new world order.”― Maria Popova, Figuring

New tides to dive into
Fresh territory to explore
Paths off trail to cut
Fresh blooms to burst
Curiosity and discovery
Releasing the old to make space for the unfamiliar
Allowing wonder, awe and beauty to transform
May gladness and gratifications expand your view and deepen your trust in the journey.

“We spend our lives trying to discern where we end and the rest of the world begins. We snatch our freeze-frame of life from the simultaneity of existence holding on to the illusions of permanence, congruence, and linearity; of static selves and lives that unfold in sensical narratives. All the while, we mistake chance for choice, our labels and models of things for the things themselves, our records for history. History is not what happened, but what survives the shipwrecks of judgment and chance.”― Maria Popova, Figuring

Aug 24

Blushed with Beginning

“A life of ease is a difficult pursuit.” – William Cowper

“This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.”
― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Good soil.
Scatter seeds.
Till.
Nurture.
Wait.
Lie low to be slow.
Tilling the soil too much does not allow the seeds to take root.
Let them be.
Time and timing.
Beginnings, middles, ends.
The blush of fresh beginnings just beneath the surface.
Rooting to bloom.

Jul 9

First Step, Repeat

“The distance is nothing; it’s only the first step that is difficult.” — Marquise du Deffand

“I just want to say three things. One, never, ever give up. Two, you’re never too old to chase your dreams. And three, it looks like a solitary sport, but it takes a team.” – Diana Nyad

Yesterday, three decades into my career in nonprofit management, I launched my own business after five months of planning and doing the work to arrive to this day. I am so grateful for family and friends who have encouraged and challenged me along the way. And for not listening to those who say, “you’re too old” or “it’s too late,” often woven in our own thoughts and limiting beliefs.

Life leads us down paths we didn’t expect. Twists, turns, delays, detours, losses and wins. A soft whisper, a pull, seeds planted within. Calling each of us to try new things, to keep growing, to stay in the game, to bloom. Try, dig in, stumble, get up and keep going. Never ever give up, never too old, and it takes a team but ultimately you need to take the leap when the plane door opens. Pack your shoot well and leap.

To new adventures, helping others and having fun along the way. KP Connections is up and running.

“Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.” – Albert Einstein

Jul 8

Divergence. Convergence. Emergence.

“All experience is an enrichment rather than an impoverishment.”― Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings

“It is our inward journey that leads us through time – forward or back, seldom in a straight line, most often spiraling. Each of us is moving, changing, with respect to others. As we discover, we remember; remembering, we discover; and most intensely do we experience this when our separate journeys converge. Our living experience at those meeting points is one of the charged dramatic fields of fiction. ”― Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings

Time.
Timing.
Before and after.
Thresholds.
Bridges.
To new beginnings.
Not only new chapters.
But new books.
The roads that lead here.
The twists, the turns.
To new beginnings.
Never, ever too old to begin again.
Do the work.
Take the leap.
Never, ever settle for being “done.”
To new beginnings.
Divergence. Convergence. Emergence.

“The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order, a timetable not necessarily–perhaps not possibly–chronological. The time as we know it subjectively is often the chronology that stories and novels follow: it is the continuous thread of revelation.”― Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings

Jun 28

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Fresh Paths

“We do not have a fear of the unknown. What we fear is giving up the known.” – Anthony DeMello

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

New beginnings.
Thresholds to cross.
Bridges from the old to the new.
Narrow paths.
Uncharted territory.
One step at a time.
Rooted in the willingness to start in a direction, without the entire journey mapped out.
The first step, then the next. Repeat.
Leaving the old behind to make space for the new.
Eyes on the road ahead.
Trust the gift, the call, the pull of new beginnings.
Start.
Never too late, never too old.
Dreams and the work to achieve them available to all.
Trust the still small voice.
Do the work.
Follow.

“You can learn new things at any time in your life if you’re willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you.” — Barbara Shur

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