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Posts tagged ‘awe’

Jan 18

Enchantment

“Enchantment lies in everyday moments if you are observant.”― Amy Leigh Mercree

“In fact I think I prefer a strange tangle of both, an idea with porous boundaries that keeps me guessing. We are not offered any definite conclusions, only the continuing quest. Certainties harden us, and eventually we come to defend them as if the world can’t contain a multiplicity of views. We are better off staying soft. It gives us room to grow and absorb, to make space for all the other glorious notions that will keep coming at us across a lifetime.”― Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age

May you soften, not harden.
Forgive, not carry the weight of resentment.
Praise, not be ungrateful for blessings overflowing that reside next to missing things too.
Wait, not rush into wrong decisions from impatience.
Act, not wait for perfection or the exact path, go off trail, compass rather than precise map.
Be kind, to self and to others, a smile, an embrace.
Empathetic, not judge and assume. Hold a hand with no advice. Be present.
Include, invite and extend belonging, it’s a lonely world. We need each other.
Widen and deepen, center to circumference, it’s a big world awaiting discovery and attention.
May color, beauty, awe, enthusiasm, delight and wonder bloom enchantment in your garden of today.

“Enchantment arises on the threshold between human activity and nature’s presence. It is always a liminal phenomenon, a momentary relationship, made of the right arrangement on stars and planets and elaborate with art by human consciousness.”― Thomas Moore

Dec 13

Kneed the Bread

“Only in silence the word,
Only in dark the light,
Only in dying life:
Bright the hawk’s flight
On the empty sky.
—The Creation of Éa”
― Ursula K. Le Guin

“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

Enter this day anew.
Fresh eyes, open heart.
A sense of wonder.
A seeking of delight.
A practice of awe.
Kindness, generosity, enthusiasm.
Love in action.
Kneed the bread.

“There is only one question:
how to love this world.”― Mary Oliver, House of Light

Nov 30

Foothold

“Take time to see the quiet miracles that
seek no attention.”― John O’Donohue

“This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.”
― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

In the slowing
The pause
Of thoughts
Of motion
Of season
Of time
To rest
Empty out
Fill up
Create space
Heal and bind up
Wintering
Hibernation
Cocoon
Clearing the clutter
A respite from the noise
A freshness
A restoration
Not to stay but to prepare
Seed time
Before the threshold of bloom
Readiness to cross thresholds
To feel the earth anew
To find your feet again
To get up and move
In a different yet familiar place of becoming
Blushed with beginning
Fresh with possibility
Ready to dance with rigor
Sing a new song
Woven, bound and anchored in wonderment
Moving with ease and flow

“May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.”― John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

Nov 16

Walk in Peace

“The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms.”― Thich Nhat Hanh

“Happiness isn’t something that depends on our surroundings…It’s something we make inside ourselves.”― Corrie Ten Boom

Pause and pursuit.
Quiet and clarity.
Slow and motion.
Space and place.
Look around on the path you walk today.
Seek beauty, color, delight.
Inside and out.
Focus attention, intention, direction.
Plant seeds along the way.
Joy, awe, kindness.
Walk in peace.

“waste time wisely, my friend. Time spent in rest, joy, company and kindness is never wasted. As for everything else, just do it. You won’t regret the things you tried and failed at. But you will regret a life spent waiting. Those who wait, wait. You have a life to live.”― Donna Ashworth, I Wish I Knew: Poems to Soothe Your Soul & Strengthen Your Spirit

Nov 14

In the Present Moment

“Life is available only in the present moment.”― Thich Nhat Hanh, Taming the Tiger Within: Meditations on Transforming Difficult Emotions

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

Drop anchor.
Pause.
Hover.
Look longer.
Color, nuance, hue.
Breathe deeply.
In and out, repeat.
In the slowing, witness beauty.
Partake in quiet.
Put down the unnecessary.
Tune out to tune in.

“Smile, breathe and go slowly.”― Thich Nhat Hanh

Aug 17

The Weight of Beauty

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“The sunlight claps the earth, and the moonbeams kiss the sea: what are all these kissings worth, if thou kiss not me?”― Percy Bysshe Shelley

Flowers in bloom swaying in the breeze.
Top-heavy and bursting.
Bending the branch, but not breaking it.
Waving to get my attention.
To break the trance of habit and autopilot.
Simple and filled with wonder.
Show stopper.
A prayer of gratitude for beauty that is cast carelessly and abundantly at our feet daily.
To awaken our senses.
Capture our attention.
Softening our grip on the unnecessary.
To put it down long enough to carry the weight of beauty.

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

Aug 3

Tremble

“The sacred is discovered in what moves and touches us, in what makes us tremble.”― Sam Keen

“Life leads us into its spaces slowly. We’re not sure what awaits us next. We set out to explore it, moving circumspectly, with a sense of anticipation then suddenly it opens up and teases us with its transparency.”― Bhuwan Thapaliya

Slowly then suddenly.
Then back to slow, steady, delay, detour.
Leave room for surprises.
For serendipity.
For communion.
Sacred sky opening up.
Holy ground we walk.
Explore and tremble.

“Soul grows in communion. Word by word, story by story, for better or worse, we build our world. From true conversation – speaking and listening – communication deepens into compassion and creates community.”― Sam Keen, Hymns to an Unknown God: Awakening The Spirit In Everyday Life

Aug 2

Ground of Wonder

“What if wonder was the ground of our gathering?”― Ross Gay, Inciting Joy: Essays

“Because in trying to articulate what, perhaps, joy is, it has occurred to me that among other things—the trees and the mushrooms have shown me this—joy is the mostly invisible, the underground union between us, you and me, which is, among other things, the great fact of our life and the lives of everyone and thing we love going away. If we sink a spoon into that fact, into the duff between us, we will find it teeming. It will look like all the books ever written. It will look like all the nerves in a body. We might call it sorrow, but we might call it a union, one that, once we notice it, once we bring it into the light, might become flower and food. Might be joy.”― Ross Gay, The Book of Delights: Essays

To look through the eyes of love.
To stand on the ground of wonder.
To pay attention and see new in the same.
To teem, steep and overflow with gratitude.
To find joy woven into each day.
And delight waiting to dance.
Look longer.
Notice.
It just might be joy sitting next to you.

“The point is that in almost every instance of our lives, our social lives, we are, if we pay attention, in the midst of an almost constant, if subtle, caretaking.”― Ross Gay, The Book of Delights: Essays

Jul 16

Common

“Laughter is a sunbeam of the soul.”― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness — just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.”― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder: On Wisdom and Virtues

May our eyes be clear to see and hold everyday blessings.
To find joy in simple things.
Discover awe again and again in the sunrise and sunset.
Put down worry.
Laugh often.
Love well.
Each day.
Common things, extraordinary wonder.

“Worry does not keep it from raining tomorrow, but it does keep it from being sunny today.”― Shannon L. Alder

Jun 27

There is a Field

“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

“Beauty isn’t all about just nice loveliness. . . . Beauty is about more rounded, substantial becoming. So I think beauty, in that sense, is about an emerging fullness, a greater sense of grace and elegance, a deeper sense of depth, and also a kind of homecoming for the enriched memory of your unfolding life.”― Aundi Kolber, Try Softer

Abundance even in difficulty.
Color and bloom abound.
See it all, especially beauty.
To be reminded often of our life unfolding to newness.
To change and be changed, overcoming resistance.
To do it afraid, watching fear diminish through action.
Fresh day, empty page to write your story anew.
Wide open fields, soft breeze, dancing color.
Feel the pulse of life.
Enter it.

“May I have the courage today To live the life that I would love, To postpone my dream no longer But do at last what I came here for And waste my heart on fear no more.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

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