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Posts from the ‘Peace’ Category

Nov 13

Gravity and Flight

“Hope is a verb with its shirtsleeves rolled up.”― David Orr

“Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.”― Thich Nhat Hanh

May peace be your path today.
Hope the work.
Rigorous joy.
Earth the playground.
Feet anchored.
Eyes up and around.
Gravity and flight.

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation

Nov 9

Peace Practice

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
― Rumi

“Let go once. And if it keeps coming up, let go again. Peace does not just happen, you have to practice it.” – Yung Pueblo

Commitment, repetition, action.
Daily walking it out.
Energy, pursuit, zeal.
Sticking with what matters.
Letting go of the unnecessary again and again.
Open to newness, possibility, change.
Making space and room for ease, flow, restoration.
In the practice, the commitment, the action lies the fruit.
May you find and be found by peace, light and joy today.
And pass it on to others too.

“Peace begins with a smile..”― Mother Teresa

Oct 24

Into Peace

“One must learn an inner solitude, wherever one may be.”― Meister Eckhart

“freedom is happening every moment when we are not craving something more.”― Yung Pueblo, Inward

Color outside the lines.
No rules.
Uninhibited.
Free of rules or instructions.
Just expression.
Create.
Whatever comes in the moment.
Allowing joy in by getting out of the way.
Open the door.
Play, delight, savor.
Right where you are, right now.
No place to be but here, in this moment.

“Run into peace.”― Meister Eckhart

Oct 18

Bother

“Trees generously share their fruit.
Bees generously share their honey.
Flowers generously share their perfume.
Do likewise.”― Matshona Dhliwayo

“We have the choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place–or not to bother”― Jane Goodall

Kindness.
Empathy.
Forgiveness.
Gentleness.
Compassion.
Encouragement.
Attention.
Generosity.
A listening ear.
A smile.
A phone call.
Small acts rooted in love.
In giving.
In a soft open heart.
This is how we make the world a better place.
Pray for peace.
Offer peace.
The world needs it.
Do your part.

“The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

Aug 11

Just Beneath the Waves

“Peace is not something you can force on anything or anyone… much less upon one’s own mind. It is like trying to quiet the ocean by pressing upon the waves. Sanity lies in somehow opening to the chaos, allowing anxiety, moving deeply into the tumult, diving into the waves, where underneath, within, peace simply is.”― Gerald May, Simply Sane: The Spirituality of Mental Health

“Healing can begin in any of the four centers of power and energy—body, heart, mind, and spirit—but in the modern world most healers work in only one area. However, our affect on the world is most magical when all four are in alignment. The great American Indian shaman Sun Bear emphasizes the need to strengthen our bodies by good nutrition and exercise; our emotions by being open and honoring our feelings; our minds by being tough-minded and rigorous in our thinking; and our spirits by connecting with our spiritual source. We can only connect with that spiritual source by finding the spiritual path that is our own.”― Carol S. Pearson, Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World

May peace find you on your path today.
Healing do its work in you.
Seize joy, enter the waves, dive deep, resurface.
Let go of all of the rest.

“He had a gift for seizing joy, grabbing opportunities, and holding on to things that matter. And he had an unusual knack for an even more difficult task: letting go of all the rest.”― David von Drehle, The Book of Charlie

Apr 19

Transcend to Understand

“Why, when God’s world is so big, did you fall asleep in a prison of all places?”— Rumi

“There are too many people in the world today who decide to live disappointed rather than risk feeling disappointment. This can take the shape of numbing, foreboding joy, being cynical or critical, or just never really fully engaging.”― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

Allow feelings to come, go and pass as they will.
Feel, do not deny.
A full spectrum of emotions without numbing.
Witness them flowing through and by.
The control is not in stopping feelings or circumstances, but not becoming them.
Pause, create space and distance to respond rather than react.
Off autopilot, awake and aware.
In the world, not of the world.
Step back, breathe, transcend, if but only for a few minutes of clarity, of reset.
Accept grace, love, light and a peace that passes all understanding.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” – Philippians 4:6-8

Jan 28

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Enduring

“The insight and wisdom we gain in our journey through love and suffering is transformational and enduring.” Mark Nepo, Surviving Storms

“You may not control life’s circumstances, but getting to be the author of your life means getting to control what you do with them.”― Atul Gawande, Being Mortal

On the path.
Curves, hills, detours.
May you look up, around, ahead.
Wander off trail.
Slowing to see and absorb the full rich view, scenery and beauty.
Seeking and finding joy and delight in ordinary days.
Peace and endurance in struggle.
Blessings in the burdens.
Gratitude and patience in the mystery and unknowing.
Awe and wonder to author your life well.

“The battle of being mortal is the battle to maintain the integrity of one’s life—to avoid becoming so diminished or dissipated or subjugated that who you are becomes disconnected from who you were or who you want to be.”― Atul Gawande, Being Mortal

Dec 19

Passages

“The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it”― Henri Nouwen

“Awe is the gateway to compassion. It is a deep awareness that we are creators, creators who work with the Creator, in an ongoing project of crafting a world. If we do not like the world or are afraid of it, we have had a hand in that. And if we made a mess, we can clean it up and do better. We are what we make.”― Diana Butler Bass, Grounded: Finding God in the World-A Spiritual Revolution

Unfolding
Unfurling
Unraveling
Renewing
Rejuvenation
Reverberation
Beginnings
Birth
Bloom
May you passthrough the gateway of awe to wonder, joy and peace.

“What we need is here.” — Wendell Berry

Dec 11

The Refrains

“There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” —Rachel Carson

“The earth has music for those who listen.” —William Shakespeare

Entering a holy ease.
Crossing the threshold of wonder where the ordinary is transformed into the sacred.
Temporal to eternal.
The collision of chaos to a solemnity, a quieting, a refrain.
Suspension of time to witness it fully, overflowing with abundance.
A cavern, a corner, a thin space meeting a wide-open field.
Moments where it all makes sense in the unknowing, in the trusting.
Being held and holding back.
Not clinging or clenching.
Rather an embrace.
Unwound and unbound.
Fully immersed in the present.
May you enter, rest and be restored in the holy and sacred.

Peace is this moment. Without thinking it should be any other way, that you should feel some other thing, that life should unfold according to your plans. Peace is this moment.” Dorothy Hunt

Nov 23

Plant Seeds, Cast Light

“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”― Leonard Cohen

“Empathy is the most mysterious transaction that the human soul can have, and it’s accessible to all of us, but we have to give ourselves the opportunity to identify, to plunge ourselves in a story where we see the world from the bottom up or through another’s eyes or heart.” – Sue Monk Kidd

The holiday season triggers a slew of emotions.
Loss of a loved one(s), recent or years ago, yet still ever present.
Childhood memories – both wonderful and difficult.
Family dynamics, fractured relationships, and the dreaded political pontifications.
We can keep going through the same door and write off the next six weeks. Endure.
OR, we can find the wonder woven in the season of hope and light.
Receiving and giving the gift of grace, kindness, empathy, forgiveness, making way for laughter, joy and peace.
Invite and allow a new story to born within this year.
One seed, one day at a time.
May this season feed and fill your heart with the healing power of love.
Plant hope, cast light.

“You will learn a lot about yourself if you stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness, of kindness, of forgiveness, of emotional bravery. Be a warrior for love.”― Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

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