Skip to content

Posts from the ‘Transformation’ Category

Sep 6

Force Field of Transformation

“Ultimately, your theme will find you. You don’t have to go looking for it.”― Richard Russo

“The spirit of a time is an incredibly subtle, yet hugely powerful force.
And it is comprised of the mentality and spirit of all individuals together.
Therefore, the way you look at things is not simply a private matter.
Your outlook actually and concretely affects what goes on.
When you give in to helplessness, you collude with despair and add to it.
When you take back your power and choose to see the possibilities for healing and transformation, your creativity awakens and flows to become an active force of renewal and encouragement in the world.
In this way, even in your own hidden life, you can become a powerful agent of transformation in a broken, darkened world.
There is a huge force field that opens when intention focuses and directs itself toward transformation.”
– John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us

Gratitude more than platitude
Observer rather absorber
Outlook shaping and shifting
Patterns from pieces
Wholeness woven from parts
Up and all around, at our feet
Contentment, steady flow
Force field opening to possibilities, light
The work of transformation
Seen and unseen.

“The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.”― Erich Fromm

Jul 29

Butterfly Work

“We are freed to free others.
We are affirmed to affirm others.
We are loved to love others.”
― Ann Weems, Kneeling in Bethlehem

“With every step of our lives we enter into the middle of some story which we are certain to misunderstand.”― G.K. Chesterton

To move from getting over things to transforming them
Caterpillar to butterfly
Beauty for ashes
Being transformed in the process
Opening and allowing
Unlearning and learning anew
Putting down the weight and walls of assumption, judgment, being right, certainty
For curiosity, discovery, unfolding, emergence, surprise, softness
Asking the next question and the next one after that
The dance of doing, being, accepting, allowing, yielding, merging, becoming
Day by day
Glory to glory
Trip and fall, get back up again and again
Laughter too, lots of it, with a side of delight
Grace overflowing
Giving and receiving
Ebb and flow
To understand rather than be understood
Dimensions rather than a flat world
Brilliant colors and hues
Peace that passes understanding
Overcoming the world while remaining in it
Salt and light
Hands and feet
Loving people exactly where they are rather than where they were or where we want them to be, especially oneself
A light, a container, a homecoming, an embrace, a warm blanket on a cool evening, a breeze on a hot summer day
Too much to ask?
Ask anyway, without ceasing.

“If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.”― G.K. Chesterton

May 22

Deeper Into It

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

“Aren’t you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don’t you often hope: ‘May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country or relationship fulfill my deepest desire.’ But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know that this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy, but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burn-out. This is the way to spiritual death.”― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World

Valley to mountain
Back again
Diving below the surface
Deep water
Rising anew
Beneath the noise
Quieting to inquire, hear
Anchor in the storm
Slowing to reflect
Pausing to reverence
Thin spaces
Hem of heaven
Partaking in the present
Garden of solitude
Take the journey, step by step
Steadfast
Peace awaits your arrival
To fearless play.

“To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. The movement from loneliness to solitude, however, is the beginning of any spiritual life because it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit, from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play.”― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life

Feb 2

Space to Choose

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”― Viktor E. Frankl

“For Equilibrium, a Blessing:

Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.

As the wind loves to call things to dance,
May your gravity by lightened by grace.

Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,
May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.

As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.

As silence smiles on the other side of what’s said,
May your sense of irony bring perspective.

As time remains free of all that it frames,
May your mind stay clear of all it names.

May your prayer of listening deepen enough
to hear in the depths the laughter of God.”
― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Resistance to release
Reaction to reflection
Speed to slow
Busy to still points
Chaos to calm
Clamor to listening
Answers to questions
Doing to being
Production to savoring
Griping to gratitude
Transaction to relationship
Rest to restoration
Reverence, wonder, awe to root joy
Space to choose well.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”― Viktor E. Frankl

Jan 30

2 Comments

Streams of Light Breaking Through

“When there is silence, one finds the anchor of the universe within oneself.” – Lao Tzu

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster.”― Martha Beck, The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self

Turmoil
Chaos
Division
Extremes
Uncertainty
The fertile soil of transformation in the making
Waking us out of complacency
To demand more of and for ourselves
To rediscover yet again and again, soon
Our humanity, interconnectedness, goodness
We belong to each other
And keep forgetting
It’s easy to tear down, criticize, soundbite, disrupt, simplify the complex, blame, despair, fear
Intellectual humility, critical thinking, kindness, inquiry, unity, respectful disagreement, civility, empathy
The hard rigorous work of love
Streams of light
Get to work in your space and place
Build, create, amplify, reflect, multiply, contribute, hope, participate
Steadfast through words and action
Cast light on your path today

“An ideal culture is one that makes a place for every human gift”― Margaret Mead

Dec 14

Repeated 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 Sense of Wonder

“The way you look at things is not simply a private matter. Your outlook actually and concretely affects what goes on. When you give in to helplessness, you collude with despair and add to it. When you take back your power and choose to see the possibilities for healing and transformation, your creativity awakens and flows to become an active force of renewal and encouragement in the world. In this way, even in your own hidden life, you can become a powerful agent of transformation in a broken, darkened world. There is a huge force field that opens when intention focuses and directs itself toward transformation.” – John O’Donohue, Benedictus

Nothing before
Nothing after
Today alone
To be here
Fully
Awake and aware
Walking lightly and softly
Fresh eyes, open arms, beating heart
Into knowing and unknowing
Discovery and delight
To witness, participate, observe
Driver and passenger
Journey of the ordinary
Transformation in the making

“Whimsy doesn’t care if you are the driver or the passenger; all that matters is that you are on your way.”― Bob Goff, Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World

Oct 12

Caterpillar Journey

“There is no greater journey than the one that you must take to discover all of the mysteries that lie within you.” – Michelle Sandlin

“Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.”― Meister Eckhart

In unknowing.
In mystery.
In seeking.
In trying.
In paying attention.
In observation.
In inquiry.
In exploration.
In one step followed by the next.
Begin again and again.
Unfolding and unfurling.
Delight, surprise, discovery.
Transformation under construction.
Caterpillar to butterfly journey.

“Paths are made by walking.”― Franz Kafka

Mar 15

Wisdom in Motion

“Knowledge strengthened by uncertainty is the heart of superior performance under fire and the key to creating a new standard of expertise – questioning – open, adaptive for volatile time. Uncertainty is wisdom in motion.” – Maggie Jackson

Curiosity.
Inquiry.
Exploration.
Questions.
Seeking.
Tending.
Patterns.
Connections.
Discovery.
Emergence.
May you not know enough to keep asking, learning, growing.
Adaptive and enthusiastic in unknowing and unfolding.
Wisdom in motion.

“When the stakes are high, those who do not know gain the cognitive advantage.” – Maggie Jackson

Mar 10

Rest Your Mind

“We spend precious hours fearing the inevitable. It would be wise to use that time adoring our families, cherishing our friends and living our lives.”― Maya Angelou

“Rabbit’s clever,” said Pooh thoughtfully.
“Yes,” said Piglet, “Rabbit’s clever.”
“And he has Brain.”
“Yes,” said Piglet, “Rabbit has Brain.”
There was a long silence.
“I suppose,” said Pooh, “that that’s why he never understands anything.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Rest your mind.
The racing thoughts.
The what ifs, whys, whens, hows.
Sit down, stop, gaze.
Open your heart.
A softening, receiving, giving, ebb and flow.
Turn up your senses.
To colors, fragrance, beauty, clarity, unknowing.
With ease, curiosity and wonder.
Enter this day.
Rapt attention.
May equanimity be yours this day.
And may it spill over into the next.
Living well this day alone.
Grace for this place, this space.

“When we keep choosing between right and wrong. We spend our energy sorting life rather than living it.”― Mark Nepo

Jan 24

Marvelous Promise

“When I looked, I knew I might never again see so much of the earth so beautiful, the beautiful being something you know added to something you see, in a whole that is different from the sum of its parts. What I saw might have been just another winter scene, although an impressive one. But what I knew was that the earth underneath was alive and that by tomorrow, certainly by the day after, it would be all green again. So what I saw because of what I knew was a kind of death with the marvelous promise of less than a three-day resurrection.”― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

“We find that, all along, we had what we needed from the beginning and that in the end we have returned to its essence, an essence we could not understand until we had experienced the actual heartbreak of the journey.”― David Whyte, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

Pausing
Slowing
Looking
Listening
Quiet
Reflection
Time unfolding
Threads weaving together to tapestry
Discovery
Renewal
Pieces to pattern
Wholeness
Thresholds to cross
Transformation
Thin spaces of discernment and clarity
Grace unfolding and holding
Trust, unwavering
Rising up again and again
Knowing wherever, whatever, all is well
May lucidity, understanding, and peace come to you on your journey
To lighten the load, widen your view, and welcome you home.

“For it is not knowing much, but realising and relishing things interiorly, that contents and satisfies the soul.”― Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises

« Older Entries