“To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking.” – Agnes de Mille
“Magic is seeing wonder in nature’s every little thing, seeing how wonderful the fireflies are and how magical are the dragonflies.”― Ama H.Vanniarachchy
Hover, dance, celebrate, drink in the color, ease and joy of summer. With the dragonfly as your guide, let the unnecessary go, cling to air, balance on a sliver of grass.
“Dragonflies are reminders that we are light and we can reflect light in powerful ways if we choose to do so.”― Robyn Nola
“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.” – Khalil Gibran
“When ‘happiness’ eludes us – as, eventually, it always will – we have the invitation to examine our programmed responses and to exercise our power to choose again.” – Richard Rohr
Summer invites rest, play and ease. Accept the invitation and get to the party early. It’s been a long year and the world is slowly opening back up. You can feel the energy, the joy, the freedom. As lockdown unlocks externally, do the same inside. Create a different daily normal fueled by gratitude, savoring, kindness, joy, possibility and delight. Make something of this massive reset and seismic shift.
Feel the earth under your feet as the breeze flows through your hair. Do not resist the urge to run through a sprinkler on a hot day. Let the water permeate, renew and refresh. Allow healing and restoration. Let old rules go and enter each new day with your imagination in search of adventure right where you are now.
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” – Albert Einstein
“I don’t sing because I’m happy; I’m happy because I sing.” – William James
“Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest? But I tell you look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.” – John 4:35
Each season creates a harvest. Sowing, tending and reaping daily we savor the harvest in gratitude, awareness and awe in beauty abound, in seemingly simple things.
New flowers are blooming daily, filling the air with fragrance as summer takes the driver’s seat. Pull over and spend some time in the spring harvest to awaken your senses. Deeply rooted gratitude is the secret to sustaining the winds.
Do not miss the scenery on the road to what’s next, to what’s easy, to someday. William James said, “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” The art of brilliance is seeing the beauty and bounty in each day, in the moment, free from circumstances and expectations.
Never surrender joy in difficult times. Guard it, embrace it, release it. Joy multiplies. The fields are ripe for harvesting today. Life is in the details woven through each day.
“I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it – but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
“Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force.” – Irving Berlin
When the sails are release and the boat at the right angle, it captures the wind and creates energy from resistance. The sail can’t control the wind, it can only harness it and enter its flow. No force needed, harnessing the wind and transforming the collision of forces, from mechanics to magic.
Harness the wind, embrace the flow, glide with ease and delight.
“Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” – Henry James
Today is the first day of summer. All seasons have their gifts. Summer beckons us to rest, to play, to witness sunset, to saunter barefoot in the grass, to long walks, to lemonade, to float on water, to breathe in nature.
Happy Birthday summer, may we seize you and dance in the beauty, warmth and celebrate each day with the frivolity and ease that you command.
“Spring passes and one remembers one’s innocence.
Summer passes and one remembers one’s exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one’s perseverance.”
― Yoko Ono
Today is June 20, 2020. 20/20/20 – an extra 20 for even more perfect vision to see the gift in a summer’s day and each day in all seasons. Happy Birthday Summer!
“Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.” – Marcus Aurelius
To sit quietly and observe. No judgment. No sound. May we all find the peace to do as the bird does on a soft quiet morning on the tip of a branch. To find depth in being and seeing, in understanding and presence.
“Be like the bird who, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing she hath wings.” – Victor Hugo
“I don’t believe in an outside agent that creates the world, then walks away. But I feel very strongly there is an intelligence at work in every flower, in every blade of grass, in every cell of my body. And it is that intelligence that, I wouldn’t say created the universe. It is creating the universe. It’s an ongoing process.” – Eckhart Tolle
“The end is the beginning of all things, Suppressed and hidden, Awaiting to be released through the rhythm Of pain and pleasure.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti
With a long slow spring, I assumed that I’d be pulling a few dead shrubs in the front yard. And then suddenly and surely, the green popped from beneath and the old dead petals are weakening and falling off, saying good-bye. When we think it’s over, it’s really the beginning. Follow, embrace and hold to the seasons, cycles and rhythms. They remain whether we remember or not. They remain.
The buds, spring push through to take their place, to take the baton from winter and hibernation. We have a lot of spring and summer ahead. Let the light in, no questions asked.
“God is offering an invitation. A call to waiting. A call to the mysteries of the cocoon.” – Sue Monk Kidd
“The fullness of one’s soul evolves slowly.” – Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits
As summer winds down and “back to school” awaits just around the corner, another season enters and the pace quickens. Summer invites us to slow down and take in sun, flowers and long weekends.
I’ve yet to experience a slow summer or a fast winter. But all seasons have their purpose. When we gratefully open the gifts each has to offer, we can be fully present in our life right now as it unfolds, often in waiting. Patience, like abs, is a tough muscle to build. It also requires us to keep moving without seeing and knowing. Trust is patience’s best friend.
Slowly and steady, cocoon to butterfly.
“And somehow the transformation you knew would never come, that impossible lumping of fresh life and revelation, does come. It manifests itself in unseen slowness.” – Sue Monk Kidd
“As long as we are persistent in our pursuit of our deepest destiny, we will continue to grow. We cannot choose the day or time when we will fully bloom. It happens in its own time.” – Denis Waitley
“Change is a continuous process. You cannot assess it with the static yardstick of a limited time frame. When a seed is sown into the ground, you cannot immediately see the plant. You have to be patient. With time, it grows into a large tree. And then the flowers bloom, and only then can the fruits be plucked.” – Mamata Banerjee
There’s something special about an August bloom. Spring invites bloom, so there’s no surprise with the accompanied delight. A late bloom shows us the capacity we all have to continue to change, grow and bloom into beauty.
Keep planting seeds, cultivating the soil, soaking in the rain and be ready for your burst of brilliance. It happens in all seasons.
“I take a simple view of life: keep your eyes open and get on with it.” – Laurence Olivier
On a long run last night, this flower stopped me in my tracks.
“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” – Alice Walker
This beauty was followed by dozens of flitting and playful monarch butterflies swimming through flower patches on the path, floating about in joy and delight. Flowers, butterflies, a sunset pull us out of our spinning thoughts and worries, reminding us of the amazing miracle of life.
God is a creative creator, sustainer and redeemer. He shows us this in nature, in people and in soft whispers in our heart. We are swimming in signs and wonders in seemingly daily “little” things.
Like a flower and butterfly, we go from seed to bloom, from cocoon to butterfly. And in the middle of transformation, we get distracted, confused and discouraged. Keep going. And while you’re on the journey, stop in your tracks and see the depth and brilliance in a purple flower.
Wake up and notice the simple miraculous beauty abound today, tomorrow and the next.
“Everything can be taken from a man or woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor E. Frankl
"Cast Light" is a call to release your inner light, your true self every day. Choose light and cast it to the world.
Featured Quotes
“I travel light. I think the most important thing is to be in a good mood and enjoy life, wherever you are.” – Diane von Furstenberg
“In every day, there are 1,440 minutes. That means we have 1,440 daily opportunities to make a positive impact.” – Les Brown
“You cannot have a positive life and a negative mind.” – Joyce Meyer
