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Posts from the ‘Emergence’ Category

Mar 4

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Kiss the Joy

“Kiss the joy as it flies.” – William Blake

“Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.”― Alan Alda

A slight adjustment
Break in routine
Intentional interruption
Play hooky
No grand gestures, perfect circumstances
Putting aside “should” and “someday when”
Releasing false sense of control and order
No fixing, just allowing, inviting
Get out of your head, to do list, expectations, demands
Into play, wandering, inquiry, blank canvas
To immerse self into this day, each day
Slivers of 10 minutes scattered throughout will do
On the hunt for beauty, delight, wonder
Opening the door, cross the threshold into awe
Clean and clear windows into the world to see the same anew
Let surprise, serendipity, light in
Kiss joy, embrace presence, sit a while.

“To insist on a certain outcome–one outcome–is to deny yourself the surprise experiences life was going to give you–the things you didn’t know you wanted until they came knocking and you were daring enough to let them in. By tying yourself to an ending, you’re making arrangements to be miserable if you don’t get exactly what you want. Or worse, you get exactly what you want and it doesn’t make you as supremely happy as you thought it was going to.”― Samara O’Shea

Feb 21

Random Awakenings

“Don’t wait for your life to magically come together–it’s your work to do. Every day, every moment, you are making your life from scratch. Today, take one step, however small, toward creating a life you can be proud of.”― Maggie Smith, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change

“Today is always a good day for a little random awakening, here and there. Decide not to hit the snooze button. Breathe, take it all in, both the miracles of life and the suffering all around us—look around, gape, give thanks, help the poor, be there gently in all of this for your dear, rattled, baby self.” – Anne Lamott

Steps
Drops
Moments
Small things
Exchanges
Encounters
Pokes
Prods
In the cracks and crevices
Waiting and detours
Random awakenings abound
Invite. Allow. Welcome.

“Ask yourself about the kind of life you want: What would you do day to day, and with whom, and where? Consider the life you have. Do one thing today, however small, to close the gap between the two.”― Maggie Smith, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change

Feb 17

Crammed with Heaven

“Earth’s crammed with heaven…
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh

“O Life,
How oft we throw it off and think, — ‘Enough,
Enough of life in so much! — here’s a cause
For rupture; — herein we must break with Life,
Or be ourselves unworthy; here we are wronged,
Maimed, spoiled for aspiration: farewell Life!’
— And so, as froward babes, we hide our eyes
And think all ended. — Then, Life calls to us
In some transformed, apocryphal, new voice,
Above us, or below us, or around . .
Perhaps we name it Nature’s voice, or Love’s,
Tricking ourselves, because we are more ashamed
To own our compensations than our griefs:
Still, Life’s voice! — still, we make our peace with Life.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh and Other Poems

Make room, create margin, yield to…
Joy
Beauty
Poetry
Music
Movement
Gratitude
Grace
Light
Astonishment
Awe
Wonder
It’s there
In seemingly small things, places, people
Right in the mess
In the striving
Not to diminish or deny struggles
But to be a companion and friend
Anchor and foundation
Someday when…
False horizon
Find goodness in this day, crammed with heaven
In cracks and crevices
On the ground you stand
Life’s voice calling, heed.

“Light tomorrow with today.” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Jan 20

Moments Blooming, Full Color

“Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies.
And be it gash or gold it will not come
Again in this identical disguise.”― Gwendolyn Brooks, Annie Allen

“Wherever life can grow, it will.
It will sprout out,
and do the best it can.
I give you what I have.
You don’t get all your questions answered in this world.
How many answers shall be found
in the developing world of my Poem?
I don’t know. Nevertheless I put my Poem,
which is my life, into your hands, where it will do the best it can.”
― Gwendolyn Brooks, Winnie

Life blooming.
In the moment.
Woven in plain sight of this day.
Notice and participate.

“She was learning to love moments. To love moments for themselves. ”― Gwendolyn Brooks

Jan 18

At Any Time, All the Time, Light

“I don’t believe there is one great thing I was made to do in this world. I believe there is one great God I was made to glorify. And there will be many ways, even a million little ways, I will declare his glory with my life.”― Emily P. Freeman, A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live

“At any time you can ask yourself:
At which threshold am I now standing?
At this time in my life, what am I leaving?
Where am I about to enter?
What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold?
What gift would enable me to do it?
A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms, and atmospheres.
Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up.
At this threshold a great complexity of emotion comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossings were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds: to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward.
The time has come to cross.” – John O’Donohue

Varieties of presence
Close up
Far away
Big
Small
Busy, over busy, distractions
Mostly in-between, a mix and muddle
Where sweetness lies, right next to grief, beside gratitude
Cloaked in grace, awe, wonder
For the taking and receiving
If we choose
Someday is now
Ordinary days
Steps leading to thresholds
Rarely aware walking it out
Slowly then suddenly
Breathe, witness, partake
Wherever you are on this leg of the journey
Slow, pause, stop
Look up and around
Beauty, light, hope, love
On the ground you stand
This very day.

“Poetry is life distilled.”― Gwendolyn Brooks

Jan 5

To Be Wild

“I no longer want more. I want to be wild.” – Emma Tynan

“May you find the singular pathway within—the one that leads you back to the places that never asked you to strive.

And when the world asks you to chase, when it tells you that “more” is the answer, may you remember there is another way. A way to root deeply. A way to belong to yourself. A way to listen for the answers buried in the clay of your own heart.

May you come to know yourself in all the wild places, and may they guide you home.” – Emma Tynan

Slow entry
Soft step
Senses atune
Rooted and reaching
Anchored and in flight
Deeper, mattering, emergence
Clay of your own heart
Whisper of soul
Listen, explore the wilderness within
Welcome home.

“This wildness is not “more.” It’s not another ladder, another stretch, another version of self-betterment. It’s remembered. It’s a movement toward what remembers you: ancestry, instinct, soul, native language, the wisdom carried quietly in your bones.

Wildness doesn’t ask for performance or destruction. It invites you deeper, beneath the polished edges and the well-rehearsed roles, into the place where your truest nature lives. It asks you to let yourself be held by the places your soul recognizes. It is the feeling of being met by a landscape and knowing, in some wordless way, that you are not separate from it.” – Emma Tynan

Nov 10

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Truest Lines

“In the hush beyond hurry, beauty begins”― AshRawArt

“Peace is not found by silencing the noise, but by remembering you don’t have to answer every echo.”― Ajmal, The Border of a Mind

Enter slow
Ease the pace
Space, stillness, clarity

“In stillness, the soul sketches it’s truest lines.”― AshRawArt

Oct 8

All the Things, and More

“Long have you timidly waded
Holding a plank by the shore,
Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,
To jump off in the midst of the sea,
Rise again, nod to me, shout,
And laughingly dash with your hair.”
― Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

“Half of me is filled with bursting words and half of me is painfully shy. I crave solitude yet also crave people. I want to pour life and love into everything yet also nurture my self-care and go gently. I want to live within the rush of primal, intuitive decision, yet also wish to sit and contemplate. This is the messiness of life – that we all carry multitudes, so must sit with the shifts. We are complicated creatures, and ultimately, the balance comes from this understanding. Be water. Flowing, flexible and soft. Subtly powerful and open. Wild and serene. Able to accept all changes, yet still led by the pull of steady tides. It is enough.”― Victoria Erickson

With grace, compassion, kindness
To be where you are at
Nowhere else
Present, awake, like water
Ebb, flow, still
Multitudes, complexities, messiness
Watching and wondering
Anchoring and rooting
Hope and resilience
Gratitude and grief
Static, in motion, changing, staying the same
All of the things
And so much more
The dance of becoming, unfolding, unknowing, being, emergence.

“Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.”
― Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

Aug 11

Butterfly Attention

“The greatest ownership of all is to glance around and understand.”― William Edgar Stafford

“I embrace emerging experience.
I participate in discovery.
I am a butterfly.
I am not a butterfly collector.
I want the experience of the butterfly.”
― William Stafford

A butterfly dropped before me, arms length
Waking me out of a walking trance
Dancing, following, abiding
Then resting on the tip of a branch
Overseeing, witnessing, participating
To be the butterfly
Drop in ocean
Ocean in drop
Glance and gaze
Big beautiful guiding world all around
To understand and be understood.

“All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.”― Kabir

Mar 21

Steadfast and Still

“…smile first, then speak.”― George Saunders, The Braindead Megaphone

“Be still, my soul, and steadfast.
Earth and heaven both are still watching
though time is draining from the clock
and your walk, that was confident and quick,
has become slow.

So, be slow if you must, but let
the heart still play its true part.
Love still as once you loved, deeply
and without patience. Let God and the world
know you are grateful. That the gift has been given.” – Mary Oliver

Become slow.
Stop.
What we take up
What we put down
Choose
Inflection point
A-ha moment
The pivot
Emergence in the pause
The gift has been given
Accept and embrace

“Grateful and awake, ask what you need to know. Say what you feel now. Love what you love now.” – Mark Nepo

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