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Posts from the ‘Connection’ Category

Pup Cups and Other Simple Things

“It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.” – Laura Ingalls Wilder

“Sometimes, we have to stand on the commitment and hard work of others. Yet, there are other passages in life that each of us has to journey through alone. We can call the first process, progress, and the second, incarnation.” – Mark Nepo, Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity

So much resides and lives in the simple things.
Time with family and friends.
Making new friends, connecting with a stranger, if but for a moment.
Laughter, a walk in the woods, trips to dog parks to chase balls and other dogs, and the newly discovered “pup cup” filled with whipped cream.
Find your path into the clearing.
We’ll see each other on the way.
Walking along side, sharing the road.
Paying attention to the simple things.
Tripping on joy and grace.
Incarnation, vastness, doing for others, seeing for self.

“Like everyone before us, we each must find our own path into the clearing, where we can build a home near the vastness of life. And we each must pass on what we can, so that those who follow will have the chance to awaken their own lives, which no one but they can live. Like everyone who will follow us, we are each called to reveal and enliven the twin ethics of doing for others and seeing for ourselves.” – Mark Nepo, Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity

New Storyline

“If you keep telling the same sad, small story, you will keep living the same sad, small life.”― Jean Houston

Open to newness.
Consider a fresh narrative.
Put aside opinion, assumption, judgment, measurement, comparison.
Explore connection, depth, expanse.
Your story is still being written.
By you or others?
Empty page waiting to have new words fall on to it.
Write and be written on with curiosity, forgiveness, forgetting, exploration, adventure, joy.
Space to allow a big life to unfold through wonder, beauty and awe hidden in ordinary days.
Emergence.

“The wounding becomes sacred when we are willing to release our old stories and to become the vehicles through which the new story may emerge into time.”― Jean Houston

Who will you meet today?

“We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.” – Swami Vivekananda

Invite and entertain new thoughts.
Engage in conversations to create connection.
There’s a vast landscape to be discovered in front of us.
Understanding, depth, a sacredness.
Be kind and generous.
Remove the layers to reveal the gift.
Grace given. Grace received.
Who will you meet today?

“The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him – that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.” – Swami Vivekananda

Change. Connection. Attention.

“Zen pretty much comes down to three things — everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.”― Jane Hirshfield

“You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted. Begin again the story of your life.”― Jane Hirshfield, The Lives of the Heart

May you feel the air surging through your chest;
The power you hold in your hands;
Understand what is yours to do and what is not yours to do;
And to get being as well as doing;
To begin again writing the story of your life each day anew.

“One breath taken completely; one poem, fully written, fully read – in such a moment, anything can happen.”― Jane Hirshfield, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry

Bridge Work

“What I do is the opposite of building walls. I build bridges. A bridge is something that connects instead of separating.” – Santiago Calatrava

“What I do is the opposite of building walls. I build bridges. A bridge is something that connects instead of separating.” – Santiago Calatrava

“The hardest thing in life to learn is which bridge to cross and which to burn.” – David Russell

In, of
From, for
Before, after
Along, between
On, off
Until, except
Over, under

Prepositions are words that “indicate relationships with other words in the sentence” per Grammarly.
Bridges, connections, pathways to tie pieces together.
Creating story, meaning.
What are your “from”s? – where have you been?
What are your “for”s? – or who, for what reason, for what purpose?

What bridges needs to be crossed over to get from “before” to “after” and remain there, not circling back again and again?

Find a bridge or two today. Build a few too. Bridges rather than walls. Connect, pass over, enjoy the journey and all that ties it together.

“There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.” – Thornton Wilder

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