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Posts tagged ‘Beauty’

Sep 21

Like a River

“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.”― Rainer Maria Rilke

“We steer the boat, we don’t alter the river.”― J. Earp

Off the shoreline.
Into the river.
Enter the flow, carried by the current, dance with beauty.
Steer your boat, not the river.
Be authentic, no need for explanation or permission.
Allow others the same grace.
Flow like the river.
Off the sidelines, into the game.
A big beautiful world awaits your participation, contribution, and delight.

“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.”― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Sep 20

The World in Pause

“Try to be like the turtle – at ease in your own shell.” – Bill Copeland

“Take a walk with a turtle. And behold the world in pause.” – Bruce Feiler

Pause to see progress.
To mark mileage.
Not in miles but in inches and feet.
In depth and expanse.
The unfolding, the opening, the becoming.
The slow path of transformation.
Seeing the same with fresh eyes.
Attuned to what is and possibilities of what is to come.
Root and reach.
Pause and praise.

“Life is a work in progress.” – Jeff Rich

Sep 19

Yield to the Beauty of Friendship

“One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.” – Khalil Gibran

Three hours on the St. Croix River.
On a Monday even.
Leaves on the cusp of changing color.
Paddling slowly.
Pausing to watch the eagles above and elusive turtles on log tips slipping into water.
Slow conversation.
Topics all over the place.
Struggles, successes, daily life, dreams, delight, joy.
The stuff of true friendship.
Timeless and no rules.
Easy like the river flowing.
Yield to the beauty of friendship.
Gratitude is a deep river.

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” – Marcel Proust

Sep 18

Leaves in Bloom

“Mindfulness arises when you allow your attention to fall effortlessly on the breathing point like an autumn leaf falling on a lake of still water”― Amit Ray, Beautify your Breath – Beautify your Life

“Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.” – Henry David Thoreau

Enter fall.
Let summer fade to memory.
Fresh eyes to see new colors burning brightly.
Fall is spring to leaves ablaze in their own bloom.
Each season, each change, each transition.
Filled with waiting, anticipation and transformation.
Starting again and again.
Never in the same place.
Unfolding into fullness.

“In every change, in every falling leaf there is some pain, some beauty. And that’s the way new leaves grow.”― Amit Ray

Sep 17

Slowing to a New World

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” – John Lubbock

“As you slow down, you instantly enter into a brand new world.”― Hiral Nagda

Slow down to see the immensity of the sky.
The endless colors of nature.
The soft whisper of your own voice awaiting to be heard and heeded.
In the slowing, we witness and partake.
The immediate satisfaction of checking transactions off the list is fleeting and hollow.
That longing that remains is an invitation to slownness, pause, and reflection.
Gratitude and awe foster wonder and praise.
It’s a big world in and out.
Slow down and enter a brand new place right in front of you.

“Drink life one sip at a time. This moment is brand new. Let it pour its newness into you.”― Hiral Nagda

Sep 16

Life Unfolding

“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” – Vincent Van Gogh

“Spoiler alert: The good life is a complicated life. For everybody. The good life is joyful… and challenging. Full of love, but also pain. And it never strictly happens; instead, the good life unfolds, through time. It is a process. It includes turmoil, calm, lightness, burdens, struggles, achievements,”― Robert Waldinger, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness

May joy be yours today.
In drops, in waves, in calm waters.
Hope, grace, peace come in ordinary ways.
Seek them.
Let them find you.
Give them away with abandon.
Life unfolding a day at a time.

“We live in all we seek.”― Annie Dillard, For the Time Being

Sep 15

One More Time

“The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”― Robert Frost

“When Medieval Monks were asked how they practiced their faith, they said, “By falling down and getting up.” This is the human journey from which no one is exempt. We are constantly challenged to get up one more time than we fall, to open one more time than we close, and to put things together one more time than we take them apart.”— Mark Nepo, Falling Down and Getting Up: Discovering Your Inner Resilience and Strength

Transitions of seasons.
External and internal.
Thresholds and openings.
Starts and stops.
Betweenness.
Trips and stumbles.
Overcoming and ease.
Emergence.
Trust the journey that flowers and butterflies know by heart.
Seed in the dark. Bloom in the light.
Weight of the cocoon. Lift of flight.
Time. Waiting. Anticipation.
Getting up again and again.
Seeing beauty along the way.

“In a modern age that commodifies everything, our challenge is to grow from the inside out, letting every holy calling find its own expression within us and between us. After decades of listening to the stories and struggles of others, I can bear witness that teaching, in its most profound form, is not moving a life from here to there, or from effort to achievement, or even from chaos to order. Rather, teaching is creating the enduring environment in which the seed of the soul can know itself and blossom.” — Mark Nepo, Falling Down and Getting Up: Discovering Your Inner Resilience and Strength

Sep 14

Top Heavy

“Cherish sunsets, wild creatures and wild places. Have a love affair with the wonder and beauty of the earth.” – Stewart Udall

“Tell me a story of deep delight.”― Robert Penn Warren

Allow joy and delight to lift you up.
Top heavy with ease.
Awed by beauty.
Present and open to possibilities.
In giving.
In receiving.
Some days glide.
Some days bumpy.
Each day, the only place to be.
In both being and doing, more being.
Fertile, sacred, holy ground of becoming.
In ordinary days.
The crucible of our formation, fruition, transformation.

“The crucible of our formation is in the monotony of our daily routines.”― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

Sep 10

The Currency of Grace

“The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.”― Rabindranath Tagore

“The new life into which we are baptized is lived out in days, hours, and minutes. God is forming us into a new people. And the place of that formation is in the small moments of today.”― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

Passing moments unnoticed.
Daily tasks repeated.
Nuance.
Hue.
Hint.
Layers.
Flavor.
Delicate.
Wisp.
Ordinary days.
Unseen and bypassed for other and next.
Put the map down.
Pin where you are and enter the space of today.
This is the place of your life before you in plain and beautiful sight.
Calling softly to enter, dance, delight in.

“Ordinary love, anonymous and unnoticed as it is, is the substance of peace on earth, the currency of God’s grace in our daily life.”― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

Sep 9

Student of Joy

“One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.”― Helen Keller, The Story of My Life

“The root of joy is gratefulness…It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”― Brother David Steindl-Rast

Get out into the world.
Look up and around.
Reach, dig, hunt for joy.
Make it a practice, intention, habit, action.
Every day.
Invite and welcome it in.
Expand your mind and thoughts as big as the sky.
Right where you stand now.
Not backwards.
Not forwards.
In stillness, rooted in gratitude, laughter, connection, in now.
Joy is a practice, a discipline, an effort at times, easy at times.
Become a student of joy.
A master of delight.

“There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.”― John Calvin

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