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Posts from the ‘Clarity’ Category

Apr 29

Teeming

“Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.”― Alan Watts

“Life is like music for its own sake. We are living in an eternal now, and when we listen to music we are not listening to the past, we are not listening to the future, we are listening to an expanded present.”― Alan Watts

May your “not to do list” grow.
From doing to being.
Speed to slow.
Blur to beauty.
From transaction and busy to relationship and connection.
In the stillness, ease.
In the depth, fullness.
In reflection, clarity.
In the music of this day, a symphony.

“For a spirit that roamed restlessly, entering into every jot of the teeming life around him, stillness must have held a deep allure. If you are everything and everywhere, how restful it must seem to be no one and no where.”― Mark Doty, What Is the Grass: Walt Whitman in My Life

Apr 17

Path Making

The Path by Lynn Ungar

“Life, the saying goes, is a journey,
and who could argue with that?
We’ve all experienced the surprising turns,
the nearly-impassible swamp, the meadow
of flowers that turned out not to be quite
so blissful and benign as we first thought,
the crest of the hill where the road
smoothed out and sloped toward home.

Our job, we say, is to remain faithful
to the path before us. Which is an assumption
as common as it is absurd.
Really? Look ahead. What do you see?
If there is a path marked out in front of you
it was almost certainly laid down for someone else.
The path only unfolds behind us,
our steps themselves laying down the road.
You can look back and see the sign posts—
the ones you followed and the ones you missed—
but there are no markers for what lies ahead.

You can tell the story of how
you forded the stream or got lost
on the short cut that wasn’t,
how you trekked your way to courage or a heart,
but all of that comes after the fact.

There is no road ahead.
There is only the walking,
the tales we weave of our adventures,
and the songs we sing
to call our companions on.”

Look back.
Progress, overcoming, grief, gratitude, clarity, weaving, connecting, growth.
Paths we didn’t choose yet took and arrived to this day.
Keep paving, laying the bricks down going forward.
Glance behind but forge ahead.
You are in the road construction business.
New paths to cut, smooth, travel.
Create your path, expect detours, delays, rerouting.
And keep going.
Bricks in the steps.

Apr 9

3 Comments

Look, Look, Look

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”― Mary Oliver

“The Place I Want to Get Back To” by Mary Oliver

The place I want to get back to
in the pinewoods
in the moments between
the darkness
and the first light
two deer
came walking down the hill
and when they saw me
they said to each other, okay,
this one is okay,
let’s see who she is
and why she is sitting
on the ground, like that,
so quiet, as if
asleep, or in a dream,
but, anyway, harmless;
and so they came
on their slender legs
and gazed upon me
not unlike the way
I go out to the dunes and look
and look and look
into the faces of the flowers;
and then one of them leaned forward
and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
bring to me that could exceed
that brief moment?
For twenty years
I have gone every day to the same woods,
not waiting, exactly, just lingering,
Such gifts, bestowed,
can’t be repeated.
If you want to talk about this
come to visit. I live in the house
near the corner, which I have named
Gratitude.”

Look, look, look.
Not in the far-off distance.
At your feet.
Arm’s length.
In reach.
Found in the pause.
Wandering.
A walk into the woods.
Where life moves at the right pace, natural, unhurried.
Big eyes gazing.
Noticing. Present. Awake.
Not in the hurry and hustle.
In the slow and stillness.
Look, look, look.
Gratitude and grace before you.
Holy, sacred ground.

“Next it dawned on him that the former ideas were of the world, the latter God-sent; finally, worldly thoughts began to lose their hold, while heavenly ones grew clearer and dearer.”― Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Dec 8

YES and…

“You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.”― Pema Chödrön

“i imagine that yes is the only living thing.”― E.E. Cummings

A resounding YES! to enthusiasm, beauty, life, wholeness.
A grounding, followed by trust then a leap.
Starting without knowing the exact way.
A compass rather than a map.
A pull, gravity, forward motion.
Engaging rather than merely existing, checking boxes.
We are bigger than we allow and enter.
Off autopilot and dive into life.
Yes’s and No’s appropriately placed.
Creating space for what already resides within awaiting release.
Commit.
Contemplation to action.
Yes and move.

“At the moment of commitment the entire universe conspires to assist you.”― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

May 30

Slow Down and Follow Through

“In the age of speed, there’s something to be found in slowing down.”― Kristen Butler

“If you’re always racing to the next moment, what happens to the one you’re in? Slow down and enjoy the moment you’re in and live your life to the fullest.”― Nanette Mathews

I haven’t picked up my golf clubs in years. This is the year, I am taking golf back up again. Part of my diversification plans – mix things up and play more. I went to the golf range yesterday afternoon to hit balls. Large bucket please. The first 10 balls – swinging fast and hard. Going faster and harder are our natural instincts.

Then it came to me. Slow down and follow through. When I listened, I got my rhythm and cadence. Hitting several balls 220+ yards. And it felt easy. Slowing down and following through – good advice for life too. We jam so much into an hour, our days. Busy, busy. Faster and wearing ourselves down. Autopilot and cruise control.

Slow down and follow through. Enjoy this day as you pump the brakes to take in the scenery. There’s joy to be found. Partake.

“Strange, what being forced to slow down could do to a person.”― Nicholas Sparks, The Last Song

May 17

Explore and Discover

“There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more.” – Lord Byron

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.” – Carl Jung

So many answers reside beneath the surface.
In arms reach, but unseen until we are quiet enough to let them rise up.
To see the light of day.
If we dare.
Often choosing busy over clarity.
Denial over discernment.
Running over facing fear.
Of the unknown, of change, of transformation, of growth, of loss, of gain.
Slow down.
Reflect, inquire, listen.
Writing, reading, nature.
It’s in you.
To find, to face, to put down, to carry on.
Going through is the only real path that moves us out of cul-de-sacs and dead ends.
New mountains and journeys.
Break trail.

“The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.”― Jonathan Swift

Jan 11

2 Comments

Aright

“Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.”― Pearl S. Buck

“We can either spend this moment wishing it could be different, or we can embrace this moment.”― William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

Receive this day with open arms.
A clarity.
A bright smile.
A fresh outlook.
A sense of delight.
A zest for laughter.
A hunger for connection.
An invitation.
An allowing.
An ease.
Embrace, hold, release, be held.
Joy. Peace. Light.

“Childhood is not a state which only applies to the first phase of our lives in the biological sense. Rather it is a basic condition which is always appropriate to a life that is lived aright.”― Karl Rahner

Oct 22

Glimpses

“The sun will not rise or set without my notice, and thanks.” – Winslow Homer

“We look at life from the back side of the tapestry. And most of the time, what we see is loose threads, tangled knots and the like. But occasionally, God’s light shines through the tapestry, and we get a glimpse of the larger design with God weaving together the darks and lights of existence.” – John Piper

In the dailyness of living, glimpses of light enter to remind us that beyond our efforts, circumstances and struggles, grace is ever present. In the unknown and mystery, there is an unfolding, becoming and assembling. Beauty in the order and in the mess. A gift to be opened, not figured out.

Beyond the doing, the hustling, the calculations, the planning, the striving, the wrestling, we are held by grace, buoyed, carried. Take the next step, keep going and allow grace in. Pay attention, listen for the whisper, be held.

“There is a design behind the world that we are living in, which is veiled to most of us most of the time, but every once in a while, you catch a glimpse of it.” – Mark Frost

Jul 23

Unravel and Revel

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”― Rainer Maria Rilke

Allow unraveling
Lean into mystery
Question, then question again
Listen
Revel in the unfolding
Come home

“Unraveling external selves and coming home to our real identity is the true meaning of soul work.” – Sue Monk Kidd

Jun 22

Glad Awakening

“I only know there came to me…a sense of glad awakening.” – Edna Saint Vincent Millay

“You do not think yourself into a new way of living as much as you live yourself into a new way of thinking.”— Yes, and…: Daily Meditations by Richard Rohr

Listen
Look
Listen harder
Look longer
Clarity by tuning the instrument of your senses
To see the same differently
To find familiarity in the different
Awaken to small moments, tiny changes, a flower unfolding.

“True life is lived when tiny changes occur.” – Leo Tolstoy

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