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Posts tagged ‘Beauty’

Jun 4

Layers and Landscapes

“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”― Henry David Thoreau

“Let go of certainty. The opposite isn’t uncertainty. It’s openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.”― Tony Schwartz

Curiosity
Interest
Inquiry
Seeking
Discovery
Surprise
Spaciousness
Playground, open field, horizons
Fresh eyes, new landscapes.

“It’s a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately fill up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with fundamental restlessness as well as fundamental spaciousness.― Pema Chodron

Jun 3

Highest of Arts

“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 or, Life in the Woods

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

Deep breath
Soft shoulders
Long gaze
Rapt presence
Reawakening
Well of peace
Within
Grounded in this day
Choices
Before each to decide
To affect the quality of day
Highest of arts, indeed.

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”― Henry David Thoreau

Jun 2

In the Details, Life Ablaze

“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.” — Henry Miller

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

“Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”

In the details, such beauty
The pause, immensity
The gaze, discovery
The stillness, symphony
The witnessing, amazement
The idleness, expansion
Holy, sacred ground we stand
Ordinary days, brimming with life
In wonder, reverence, goodness, grace

“God is in the details.” – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

May 31

Plenitude in Presence

“Beautiful things don’t ask for attention.”― James Thurber, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

“Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around us in awareness.”― James Thurber

Weave, braid, knit sabbaths into each day
Shabbat – to cease, to rest
Pull over, pause, be still
Pockets, slivers, teaspoons
Beauty, awe, wonder
Inquiry, awareness, observation
Emergence
Plenitude in presence.

“It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.”― James Thurber

May 29

Harvester of Presence

“If you go out for several hours into a place that is wild, your mind begins to slow down, down, down. What is happening is that the clay of your body is retrieving its own sense of sisterhood with the great clay of the landscape.”― John O’Donohue, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World

“The art of disappearing certainly has its own kind of value. In a strange way, in modern society we seem to be inhabiting the world of absence more than presence through the whole world of technology and virtual reality. Very often it seems that the driven nature of contemporary society is turning us into the ultimate harvesters of absence, that is, ghosts in our own lives.”― John O’Donohue, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World

Quiet miracles
In abundance
Clay of landscape
Pay attention
Harvester of presence in, on, through, with this day.

“Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.”― John O’Donohue, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World

May 25

Replete with Meaning

“Part of doing something is listening. We are listening. To the sun. To the stars. To the wind.”― Madeleine L’Engle, Swiftly Tilting Planet

“Growing up is a process that never ends. It isn’t a point you attain so you can say, Hooray, I’m grown up. Some people never grow up. And nobody ever finishes growing. Or shouldn’t. If you stop you might as well quit. What I have to tell you is that it never gets any easier. It goes right on being rough forever. But nothing that’s easy is worth anything. You ought to have learned that by now. What happens as you keep on growing is that all of a sudden you realize that it’s more exciting and beautiful than scary and awful.”― Madeleine L’Engle

Eyes on the road ahead, not too far.
Feet anchored in path of this day.
Stop looking for a different ending in the rearview mirror.
Start where you are and carry on.
Time is moving.
Join the flow.
Transformation, ever unfolding.
Growing new, not old.
Stories yet to be written.
Canvas to paint.
Use all the colors.
Go outside the lines.
Bending, not breaking.
Stretching and reaching.
Stumble, trip, get up.
Laugh, alot.
Wander, wonder, delight.
Scattering, mattering, blooming.

“The everyday human gesture is always a heartbeat away from the miraculous — [remember] that ultimately we make things happen through our actions, way beyond our understanding or intention; that our seemingly small ordinary human acts have untold consequences; that what we do in this world means something; that we are not nothing; and that our most quotidian human actions by their nature burst the seams of our intent and spill meaningfully and radically through time and space, changing everything… Our deeds, no matter how insignificant they may feel, are replete with meaning, and of vast consequence, and… they constantly impact upon the unfolding story of the world, whether we know it or not.” – Nick Cave

May 23

Lilacs in Full Bloom

“Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances. ”― Maya Angelou

“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”― Maya Angelou

Yield to joy
Make way for delight
Clear a path for laughter
Arrive full of hope
Shining bright
Lilacs are in full bloom
Slowly then suddenly
Senses ablaze
Transformation at work.

“Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.”― Maya Angelou

May 22

Riches of Wonder

“encounter the mystery and wonder of unsuspected instants. Let us dip into the marvel of the budding and the blooming” ― Erik Pevernagie

“And the deer–
how beautiful they are,
as though their bodies did not impede them.
Slowly they drift into the open
though bronze panels of sunlight.”
― Louise Glück, The House on Marshland

Sometimes seeking and searching
Sometimes beauty finds you
Too many times, passing by without notice
To be awake
To see delight
In stillness
Wonder strolls in, an invitation
To be found and held
Embrace of mystery, awe, reverence
Partaker of joy

“If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is no poverty.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

“Live bold, without fear. This is life amongst the deer.”― Katelyn S. Bolds

May 21

Poetry of the Earth

“The poetry of the earth is never dead.” – John Keats

“Home has less to do with a piece of soil then a piece of soul.” – Pico Iyer

To hold dear, with delight
Extraordinary beauty
Bloom and life woven throughout
Abiding and embracing
Richness and density
Lightness and buoyancy
Poetry of the earth
Alive and well
Join the prose.

“To experience sublime natural beauty is to confront the total inadequacy of language to describe what you see. Words cannot convey the scale of a view that is so stunning it is felt.” – Eleanor Catton

May 20

Fidelity and Flow

“A person susceptible to “wanderlust” is not so much addicted to movement as committed to transformation.”― Pico Iyer

“In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.”― Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere

Fidelity to this day
Presence sought, found
Held, steady
Yolk easy
Burden light
River of joy running through it, undeterred
Slow. Attention. Stillness.
Reverence. Wanderlust. Serendipity.
Fidelity to this day.

“Serendipity was my tour guide, assisted by caprice”― Pico Iyer

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