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Posts from the ‘Mindfulness’ Category

Aug 16

Slow and Easy

“Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going to fast – you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.” – Eddie Cantor

“It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when they have lost their way.”― Rollo May

Slow down.
Let your imagination saunter and wander.
Allow quiet spaces to hear your own voice.
Anchor in today.
See beauty and light.
There’s fun to be had.
Play to partake in.
Slow and easy.

“What if imagination and art are not frosting at all, but the fountainhead of human experience?”― Rollo May

Jul 19

Revery

“Where there are bees there are flowers, and wherever there are flowers there is new life and hope.”― Christy Lefteri, The Beekeeper of Aleppo

“To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

We are onto the next thing before the thing before us is barely started or over.
Passing by quickly in search of what’s next.
As if we could find it when we can’t see the bounty that is already before us.
In loss, we miss what we already had.
No do overs.
Live twice.
Once in the moment.
Again in the memory.
Be where you are right now fully.
In the imperfection, beauty, messiness and awe.
Reverence. Wonder. Revery.

“Mindfulness is simply being aware of what is happening right now without wishing it were different.” – James Baraz

Jul 17

Timeless As Bird’s Wings

“Timelessness is an art.”― Richie Norton

“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.”― Jelaluddin Rumi , The Essential Rumi

I forgot the charger for my watch this weekend on a mini-escape up north.
My “smart” watch that tracks time, my steps, progress to goal.
Entering timelessness for two days.
No place to be at a certain time.
No tracking of steps or progress.
Suspended and steeped in now-ness.
Lose track of time now and then.
Enter simple moments.
Open to beauty that is all around.
Nothing to track but the present.
Contracting and expanding.
Breathing.

“The timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness. And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.”― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

Jun 11

Slow Down, Repeat

“As you slow down, you instantly enter into a brand new world.”― Hiral Nagda

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

In the hustle
In the hurry
The blur and flurry
Surface and skimming by
We miss the essence of life
Slow down
The nuance
The beauty
The depth and expanse
Slow down
Pause
Take a deep breath
More often than not
Each day, each hour, this moment
Slow down
Exhale, inhale, sit still
In the softness of a long glance
In the margins
Slow down
Gentle pace
Lovely place and space
Stay here awhile, be made new
The magnitude of quietude
Slow down…repeat.

“Sometimes I think there are only two instructions we need to follow to develop and deepen our spiritual life: slow down and let go.”― Oriah Mountain Dreamer, The Dance: Moving To the Rhythms of Your True Self

May 28

Keen Awareness

“Ordinary love, anonymous and unnoticed as it is, is the substance of peace on earth, the currency of God’s grace in our daily life.”― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

In the economy of the day
Of a life which is made up of the accumulation of days
In what we choose to do and not to do
In plans, in detours, delays, and in what just happens
May each of us have a keen awareness of the details in the present as well as the 10,000 foot view to see the expanse
To be grateful, joyful, even in the struggles, especially then
Senses sharpened, awareness sharp, grace overflowing.

“God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by subtracting” — Meister Eckhart

May 25

Small Bits

“Our task is not to somehow inject God into our work but to join God in the work he is already doing in and through our vocational lives.”― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

“The new life into which we are baptized is lived out in days, hours, and minutes. God is forming us into a new people. And the place of that formation is in the small moments of today.”― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

Feeling flat?
In a rut?
Is there more?
Someday when.
Remember when.
When, when, when.
Turn off auto-pilot.
Wake up and dive in.
Beneath the surface, more than skimming.
Participate and play.
Ordinary days.
We are steeped in beauty.
Overflowing in possibilities.
Pay attention, notice, enter the grace of small bits, sacred ground.

“…small bits of our day are profoundly meaningful because they are the site of our worship. The crucible of our formation is in the monotony of our daily routines.”― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

May 16

Awake Every Day

“Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.”― Jonathan Swift

“May you live every day of your life.”― Jonathan Swift

Slow time by noticing it.
Steeping in it, like a tea bag for full flavor.
The pause, stillness, quiet to be present fully where you are right now.
Witness the unfolding of the petal of a flower.
Feel the break of a smile and delight in laughter.
Put down the world and pick up this moment.
All stages of bloom, seed, bud, broken open.
Live every day, see the invisible and trust you will be put where you should be.

“If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.” – Joan of Arc

May 9

Read Well

“There is always something left to love.”― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”― Voltaire

Like a book
We skim many pages of our days
Rereading some to understand, to redo
Underlining moments to make them stick
To imprint in memory
Read today well
Not merely skimming, passing through without attention
Seek to understand, to learn, to see the story unfolding
Read and write the narrative
How it all ties together in moments, ordinary and extraordinary
Inquire. Love. Dance.

“How will the world change if we do not question it?”― Kate DiCamillo, The Magician’s Elephant

Apr 21

1 Comment

Miracles Abound

“If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.” – Gail Sheehy

“Miracles happen everyday, change your perception of what a miracle is and you’ll see them all around you.” – Jon Bon Jovi

With ease, open to receive, to give.
Rapt attention, a shift in perspective, fresh eyes, listening ears.
Senses on and in tune to experience the same in a new way.
Ordinary becomes extraordinary.
Miracles in nature, in flowers bursting to greet spring, in spirit and soul.
Come alive, look longer, breath deeper.
In this day, be present and awake.
Be there fully.

“The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” — Ireneaus

Feb 4

Noticing

“keep fresh before me the moments of my high resolve.”― Howard Thurman

“Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is right at their heels.” – Bertolt Brecht

From winter solstice to now, light is lingering longer.
Now seen, felt, noticed.
Sunset in December: 4:39 pm.
Sunset today: 5:22 pm.
Slow start – four minutes total between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
Steady increase – after New Year’s, exponential jump to two minute per day.
Growth zone – gaining three minutes per day by February 20.

Light, always there, returning in its own time, awaiting our attention.
Our noticing.
Beauty, color, joy woven throughout each day.
Our noticing.
In slivers, slices, thin spaces, overflowing and abundant with wonder and awe.
Our noticing.
Threads to fabric to cloth to tapestry, pieces to patterns.
Our noticing.

Hone your senses, your noticing skills.
Pull back, zoom in.
Savor, delight, steep.
A shift, a tilt, a different angle.
Seeing the same in a new way.
In the pause, in the lingering, in the noticing.
Moments of high resolve.

“Silence is the eloquence of the wise.”― Augusto Branco

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