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Posts from the ‘Transformation’ Category

Mar 31

Passages and Transformations

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius

“Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?” – Charles Bukowski

Last day of the week, of the month.
A month that I will carry with me the rest of my life.
In my bones, in my heart, in my journey forward.
Grateful to those who truly walked this month and 7 years with me, quietly.
Mere presence overflowing.
Calls, texts, dinners.
Prayers I’ll never know how many and they mattered, did their work.
No words to describe adequately.
It’s not over, but it’s changing, like life does every day.
Life is never done nor are we ever done.
Unfolding, unfurling, becoming who we already are and forget.
A homecoming.
We need only to pay attention.
To seasons, circles, passages, transformations.
The gift of springs, and winters.
Stay awake in this day and pull back to see the whole story too.
Love is right in front of you and has been there the entire time.

“A doorway is a passage, not a place of residence.”― Craig D. Lounsbrough

Feb 16

The Filter and Field

“holiness is made of dailiness, of living life as it comes to me, not as I insist it be.”― Joan D. Chittister, The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully

“Prayer in Benedictine spirituality is not an interruption of our busy lives nor is it a higher act. Prayer is the filter through which we learn, if we listen hard enough, to see our world aright and anew and without which we live life with souls that are deaf and dumb and blind.”― Joan Chittister

The filter, the lens, the angle.
Broad, narrow, in, out.
Frosted, clear, a wall with no window.
New canvas, fresh day.
Doors, windows, thresholds.
A willingness, an allowing and invitation to keep growing, expanding, changing.
Cast light, brighten the dim places.
Interior and exterior.
The world aright and anew.
Hope, joy, peace and awe to be harvested today.
Sow, tend, harvest.

“Our role in life is to bring the light of our own souls to the dim places around us.”― Joan Chittister

Feb 15

In Conversation

“You know that the antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest? … The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.”― David Whyte, Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity

“Desire demands only a constant attention to the unknown gravitational field which surrounds us and from which we can recharge ourselves every moment, as if breathing from the atmosphere of possibility itself. A life’s work is not a series of stepping-stones onto which we calmly place our feet, but more like an ocean crossing where there is no path, only a heading, a direction, which, of itself, is in conversation with the elements.”― David Whyte, Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity

Move past the surface of change aversion, the threshold resistance and transition freeze into the depth, dimension, height and width of transformation and transcendence.
Creating meaning, fostering understanding amidst the mystery and unknowing.
In conversation with self and the world.
Opening new doors.
Leaping through thresholds.
Blooming vibrant color.
Shining brilliant light.
Free and alive wholeheartedly.
In the one world which you belong.

“You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
Except the one in which you belong.”― David Whyte

Jan 9

Greatest Treasures

“Stop leaving and you will arrive. Stop searching and you will see. Stop running away and you will be found.”― Lao Tzu

“Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

January.
The month of strong starts and quick stops.
Returning to familiar old when motivation wanes and drains.
Change it this time.
Not leaps and grand gestures.
A few steps each day repeated to compound, multiply, root.
Repeat, focus, keep going.
Mindfulness. Reflection. Action.
Do the daily work and wait.
Letting go to take hold.
Clearing clutter within and out to create space.
Renewal a moment, an hour, a day at time.
Body, mind, soul.
Simplicity, patience, compassion.
Caterpillar to butterfly.

“Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear?”― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Dec 5

1 Comment

A Different Coat

“Snow creates that quality of awe in the face of a power greater than ours. It epitomises the aesthetic notion of the sublime, in which greatness and beauty couple to overcome you—a small, frail human—entirely.”― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

“I recognized winter. I saw it coming (a mile off, since you ask), and I looked it in the eye. I greeted it and let it in. I had some tricks up my sleeve, you see. I’ve learned them the hard way. When I started feeling the drag of winter, I began to treat myself like a favored child: with kindness and love. I assumed my needs were reasonable and that my feelings were signals of something important. I kept myself well fed and made sure I was getting enough sleep. I took myself for walks in the fresh air and spent time doing things that soothed me. I asked myself: What is this winter all about? I asked myself: What change is coming?” ― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

In slowing, wintering, waiting, a certain and steady unfolding.
In stillness, restoration, clarity, ease.
Crisp air to open, awaken.
Sun dancing with shadows.
Change, transition, transformation.
A new coat in the making.

“That’s the gift of winter: it’s irresistible. Change will happen in its wake, whether we like it or not. We can come out of it wearing a different coat.”― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

Dec 1

First Day, Last Month

“Beauty is a fragile gift.” – Ovid

“The journey itself is my home.”― Matsuo Basho

Beginnings and endings
Firsts and lasts
Starts and finishes
Before and After
Thresholds to cross
Roads to travel
The in betweens, the middle
In all of it, may you find meaning on your journey
Seeking and finding beauty, joy, light amidst the middles and transitions
Awake to transformation unfolding.

“Come dress yourself in love, let the journey begin.” – Francesca da Rimini

Oct 13

Malleable

“Whatever it is you’re seeking won’t come in the form you’re expecting.”― Haruki Marukami

“What might we learn if we listen, if we wade in—unafraid, untethered, and uninhibited—ready to become the ones we were created to become.”― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

Pushed
Pulled
Stretched
Reshaped
Flipped upside down
Shaken
Stirred
Resistance, friction, flow
Different yet familiar
Connected, present, complete
Untether, malleable, made new
The journey is one of becoming
Transitions, thresholds, transformation

“If you’re willing to pay attention to and dialogue with what’s happening inside of you, you’ll find that your body already knows the answers about how to live a full, present, connected, and healthy life.”― Hillary L. McBride, The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Healing, Wholeness, and Connection through Embodied Living

Mar 1

The Journey to Spring

“Spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil.” – Bishop Reginald Heber

“Never yet was a springtime, when the buds forgot to bloom.” – Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

Snow still on the ground.
More to come.
Temperatures on a rollercoaster.
45 and sunny.
10 with windchill.
The seasonal dance as we move closer to Spring, but not quite there.
Birds begin to sing and awaken.
Light lingers longer.
Ice to water back to ice.
Brown grass peeks out of patches where melt has occurred.
Close but not next.
The prelude to the beginning of spring.
Anticipation, preparation and waiting.
Desert time.
The eve of Lent, 40 days.
A container, a well, a room, a place, a space.
Reckoning. Resolve. Reflection. Inflection.
The journey to spring, to resurrection begins with ashes.
Where we come from and where we return.
The in between is the gift we get and give.
Travel well, in companionship, never alone.
The middle ground, the path, the journey to spring is here.
Patiently, take the full trip, into depth, quiet and beauty.
Bloom ahead.

“Have patience with all things, but first of all with yourself.” – St. Francis de Sales

Feb 20

Church

“Every natural object is a conductor of divinity and only by coming into contact with them... may we be filled with the Holy Ghost.” – John Muir

“Every natural object is a conductor of divinity and only by coming into contact with them… may we be filled with the Holy Ghost.” – John Muir

“Anybody can observe the Sabbath, but making it holy surely takes the rest of the week.” – Alice Walker

Sacred surrounds us.
Holy invites and enfolds.
Church isn’t a building.
Church is all around each day.
It’s the sky on fire with pink and orange at days end.
It’s a walk into the woods.
It’s people reaching out, connecting, caring.
In listening.
In laughter.
In gathering.
In solitude.
In tears.
In service.
In generosity.
In frustration.
In patience.
In celebration.
In music, art, poetry.
Hallowed ground.
In awe, praise and wonder of ordinary days.
Church in session.
The Author and Creator abound.
Amen.

“For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.” – William Blake

Dec 21

1 Comment

Solstice Inflection

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, ‘Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.” — Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

“The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. Faith also means reaching deeply within, for the sense one was born with, the sense, for example, to go for a walk.”― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year as the journey begins to spring through the woods, valleys and mountains of winter. An inflection point, a turning, a beginning and ending residing together. Light always returns.

Here’s to beginnings, endings, more beginnings, more endings and the caulk and cracks of ordinary simple beautiful days that hold them all together. There’s meaning in all of it. Trust it when it doesn’t make sense allowing hope to be the thread that allows us grace to not understand and to continue on with joy as a backdrop and faith as a verb. Read your life so you can keep writing your life anew weaving the sentences, paragraphs and acts together. Finding the themes, the patterns, the connections, the dead branches that need to be pruned for new growth to unfold.

Flow in and with the rhythm of seasons with the unfolding, unmaking, unwinding that prepares for the renewal, repurposing and making new. Unfolding, unfurling, flowing.

“Those who flow as life flows know they need no other force.” Lao Tzu

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