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Posts from the ‘Life’ Category

Jan 17

Making Music Each Day

“Life’ wrote a friend of mine, ‘is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.”― E.M. Forster, A Room with a View

“Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate.”― E.M. Forster, A Passage to India

Life is life-ing
As it does
To not take it too lightly
To not take too heavily
To allow, invite, experience
So much we think we know but don’t
Assumptions and judgments to simplify and feel in control
False narratives for false comfort
To be awake, aware, at attention
Gratitude, grief, grace
In small things
Big too
Keep asking, growing, softening
Porous heart
Generous spirit
Curious mind
Plant seeds
Play often
Offer love, laughter, joy
Music in the making, written in the playing
Enjoy and participate in life in all of it’s life-ing
Cast light

“Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.”― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Aug 22

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Breadcrumbs and Shards

“The whole universe is based on rhythms. Everything happens in circles, in spirals.” – John Hartford

“Kintsugi is based on the belief that something broken is stronger and more beautiful because of its imperfections, the history attached to it, and its altered state. Instead of hiding what’s been damaged, the shards are mended with a special resin mixed with gold dust. The bonded seams become an intrinsic part of the ceramic and add a personalized, one-of-a-kind beauty through its imperfections.”― Jo Ann V. Glim, Begotten with Love: Every Family Has Its Story

Follow the breadcrumbs
Shards woven, stitched, melded back together again new
Bound in gold, restored to beauty
Purposed and repurposed
Seasons, circles, transformation
Follow the breadcrumbs, find the gold.

“Life does not belong to you. It is the apartment you rent. Love without fear, for love is an airplane that carries you to new lands. There is a universe in silence. A tunnel to peace in a scream. Get a good night’s sleep. Laugh when you can. You are more magical than you know. Take your advice from the elderly and children. None of it as crucial as you think, but that makes it no less vital. Our lives go on, and on. Look for the breadcrumbs.”― Marisha Pessl, Neverworld Wake

Jan 31

Dizzying Serendipity

“Life is gritty and hard and then suddenly it is brilliant and amazing.”― Mel Robbins

“We can spend our lives fretting about our deaths, or we can use our brief time to sink deeper into the experience of being human, for all it entails. The good, the tricky, the impermanent. We can acknowledge our death will one day come and use that knowledge to create a life so whole, so honest, so juicy, that it is worth leaving. I have seen over and over human beings’ personal reckonings in the final moments of life. It begs the question: What must I do to be at peace with myself so that I may live presently and die gracefully?

Without our deaths, none of it would matter. There would be no context for what we do. When we live in relationship to our mortality, it adds direction to our actions, truth to our words, rapture to our experience, authenticity to our being, and maybe pounds to our hips. We can make choices that resonate with the core of our being, free from societal expectations and the judgment of others.

While our lives and choices may seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, they are not. With the dizzying serendipity that must occur for us to be born, the fact that we live is a miracle.”― Alua Arthur, Briefly Perfectly Human

A family funeral brings to the forefront what is important, or should be
Brevity of days
Blessings and duty of relationships
Friends and family who show up to be present, to remember
Sweet memories, funny stories
Today is ours to make or to fritter away
Life keeps “life”-ing
Twists and turns
Not getting our way
What we care about
What we need to let go
People disappointing us
Us disappointing people
What we create, who we are, how we spend our time
Our thoughts, words, actions, inactions
Daily choices to be present, attune, grateful or not
To seek joy, peace, kindness, delight, laughter, play
Life, which is this day, matters
Love well, with dizzying serendipity

“At every step in our path, some possibilities die behind us while others bloom before us, and in every transition, even the joyful ones, there is grief.”― Alua Arthur, Briefly Perfectly Human

Jan 3

Walk the Path

“That’s because love is never stationary. In the end, love doesn’t just keep thinking about it or keep planning for it. Simply put: love does.”― Bob Goff, Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World

Life Is by Mother Theresa

“Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is bliss, taste it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.”

All the above.
And more.
Twists, turns.
Detours, delays.
Light, shadow.
Nuance, depth.
Beauty, joy.
Walk the path.
Wherever it leads.
Stay engaged and awake.
Fight the good fight.
Of attention, awe, gratitude, grief, healing, delight, presence, mystery, wonder.
Be kind.
Love well.
Keep walking.

“We shake with joy, we shake with grief.
What a time they have, these two
housed as they are in the same body.”
― Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Aug 4

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Live Well, A Day at a Time

“Be where you are, not where you think you should be.” – Unknown

May you find joy today and each day.
Right where you are.
Not looking back in nostalgia, of remember when…
Not looking forward in perfect circumstances, of when this happens…
In today, living well, loving well.
This is it.
Change what you can and let the rest go.
Gratitude. Generosity. Kindness.
Dive in and find delight.

“An easy life isn’t an option; an easy yoke is.”― John Mark Comer, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

Jan 4

1 Comment

Taste It All

“Love won’t be tampered with, love won’t go away. Push it to one side and it creeps to the other.”― Louise Erdrich

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.”― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

Sorrow is a given.
The price of loving well, deep, wholeheartedly.
It passes too.
Transforms to something tolerable.
Bitter to sweetness, with an edge.
Broken then mended, different but bound again.
Joy is sorrow’s roommate.
Hope too.
Let them in.
Hold their hand.
Dive into life and you’ll be pulled under.
But you are buoyant.
Love well.
In thoughts, words, actions mostly.
Love well.
Taste as much as you can.

“Sorrow eats time. Be patient. Time eats sorrow.”― Louise Erdrich, LaRose

Sep 16

Life Unfolding

“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” – Vincent Van Gogh

“Spoiler alert: The good life is a complicated life. For everybody. The good life is joyful… and challenging. Full of love, but also pain. And it never strictly happens; instead, the good life unfolds, through time. It is a process. It includes turmoil, calm, lightness, burdens, struggles, achievements,”― Robert Waldinger, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness

May joy be yours today.
In drops, in waves, in calm waters.
Hope, grace, peace come in ordinary ways.
Seek them.
Let them find you.
Give them away with abandon.
Life unfolding a day at a time.

“We live in all we seek.”― Annie Dillard, For the Time Being

Sep 4

Placidly

“Happiness held is the seed; Happiness shared is the flower.” – John Harrigan

“Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love – for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you from misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.”― Max Ehrmann, Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life

May your mind be able to be changed.
Your heart opened wider.
Your spirit ascend again and again.
And hope and joy be the song you sing each day.
Anticipation, delight and ease be yours this day.

“To be devoid of life is to lack spiritual dimension that brings heaven to earth”― Sunday Adelaja

Aug 4

Affirm

“Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.”― Sam Keen

“While we wait for life, life passes.” – Seneca

Live while life is happening.
Now.
In the waiting.
In the rushing.
In the resting.
In the healing.
In work.
In play.
In all seasons.
Someday is today.
Engage. Participate. Affirm.

“The hero’s achievement, in short, is to affirm life.”― Carol S. Pearson

Jun 24

Reclaim the Sacred

“Reclaiming the sacred in our lives naturally brings us close once more to the wellsprings of poetry.”― Robert Bly

“Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.” – Marcus Aurelius

Reorient
Recalibrate
Redirect
Ground
Center
Anchor
Explore
Transform
Life, always in motion
Thriving
Cycles
Seasons
Spinning
Stopping
Starting
Changing
Evolving
Unfolding
Enter the flow
Move into the current
Reclaim the sacred

“Being human is not about being any one particular way; it is about being as life creates you—with your own particular strengths and weaknesses, gifts and challenges, quirks and oddities.”― Kristin Neff, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself

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