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Posts tagged ‘Beauty’

Dec 3

Spring of Winter

“All things are meltable, and replaceable. Not at this moment, but soon enough, we are lambs and we are leaves, and we are stars, and the shining, mysterious pond water itself.”― Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems

“And as with prayer, which is a dipping of oneself toward the light, there is a consequence of attentiveness to the grass itself, and the sky itself, and to the floating bird. I too leave the fret and enclosure of my own life. I too dip myself toward the immeasurable.”― Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems

Poetry of presence
Prayer in the pause
Dipping toward the light
Slow, soft, abiding
Sacred ground of today
In the spring of winter
Dipping into the immeasurable

“And I thought: I shall remember this all my life. The peril, the running, the howling of the dogs, the smothering. Then the happiness—of action, of leaping. Then the green sweetness of distance. And the trees: their thickness and their compassion, all around.”― Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems

Nov 25

infinitesimals

“I am a hunter of beauty and I move slow and I keep the eyes wide, every fiber of every muscle sensing all wonder and this is the thrill of the hunt and I could be an expert on the life full, the beauty meat that lurks in every moment.”― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“The whole of the life — even the hard — is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole. These are new language lessons, and I live them out. There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.”― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

Fullness of time
Made of moments
Ordinary days
Encounters
Glances and gazing
Attention and expectation
Joy before us each day
Woven in beauty, gratitude, grace and noticing

“Wherever you are, be all there.” I have lived the runner, panting ahead in worry, pounding back in regrets, terrified to live in the present, because here-time asks me to do the hardest of all: just open wide and receive.”― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

Nov 23

The Work of Attention, Presence

“Friluftsliv is about communing with nature and with yourself, and about unburdening oneself from anything but being present. It’s about disconnecting from the day-to-day in order to connect with something older, wilder, and larger.”― Kari Leibowitz, How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days

The work of not working
Of slowing, rest, recreation
Witnessing and observing
Quieting
Noticing
Listening
At ease
Allowing
Abiding
Experiences and encounters
Of presence
Rather than productivity, performance, speed
Awe, wonder, enchantment
Communion, relating, tending
Deep in the journey of this day
Be here, now.

“How we attend to things shapes our existence. Our attention is a powerful tool, and it plays a tremendous role in our everyday experience. What we attend to becomes what we see, and what we see becomes what we engage with, and what we engage with becomes our life.”― Kari Leibowitz, How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days

Nov 22

Stacking Stones

“We can throw stones, complain about them, stumble on them, climb over them, or build with them.”― William Arthur Ward

“The adventure of life is to learn.
The purpose of life is to grow.
The nature of life is to change.
The challenge of life is to overcome.
The essence of life is to care.
The opportunity of like is to serve.
The secret of life is to dare.
The spice of life is to befriend.
The beauty of life is to give.”
― William Arthur Ward

Generosity of spirit
Deep well of gratitude
Overflowing awe and wonder
Kindness, laughter, love
Learning, grow, change, overcome, care, serve, dare, befriend, give
Stacking stones
Build some beauty, delight, joy today

“There is no small act of kindness.
Every compassionate act makes large the world.”― Mary Anne Radmacher

Nov 15

Poetry of Presence

“Poetry calls us to pause. There is so much we overlook, while the abundance around us continues to shimmer, on its own.”― Naomi Shihab Nye

“only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye

From doing to being
Swift to slow
Pausing to notice, partake
Kindness of gratitude, awe, wonder
Shimmer of this day
Poetry of presence
Interrupted by beauty

“Every day is a poetry day.”― Naomi Shihab Nye

Nov 14

Sacred Spaces, In and Out

“It seems that intuitive listening requires us to still our minds until the beauty of things older than our minds can find us.”― Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What Is Sacred

“Let all your thinks be thanks.”― W.H. Auden

Within, to heart, not head
Venturing out, beauty abound
Enter the stream
At ease in the flow
Stay here for a spell
Sacred spaces, of awe and wonder
Tune out the noise to listen.

“Now, I want only to give away all that I’m blessed to know and disappear in the stream.”― Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What Is Sacred

Nov 9

Invincible Summer

“Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it.”― Albert Camus

“Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn’t have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world. It doesn’t have to be a walk during which you’ll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don’t find meaning but ‘steal’ some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be.”― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1951-1959

Invincible summer, in all seasons.
Curiosity, interest, exploration.
Attention, noticing, discovery.
Love, laughter, ease.
This day, not someday “when”
This day.
Cast light.

“In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.
In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.
In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.
I realized, through it all, that…
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.” – Albert Camus

Nov 8

Beauty Lingers, Awaiting Your Noticing

“one small thing
I’ve learned these years,
how to be alone,
and at the edge of aloneness
how to be found by the world.”
― David Whyte, River Flow

“Song for Autumn”

Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now
how comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of the air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees, especially those with
mossy hollows, are beginning to look for

the birds that will come—six, a dozen—to sleep
inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
stiffens and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its long blue shadows. The wind wags
its many tails. And in the evening
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.”― Mary Oliver

Autumn beauty lingering
Awaiting your noticing
Partaking
Praise
Presence
Finish opening the gifts of the season
Beauty within and out
In all seasons.

“When we devote some calm time to the heart and come off the treadmill of stress and distraction we can enter into the beauty within.  Each of us can prepare for that inner arrival: where ‘night holds sway’ and the inner forest becomes ‘free of strangers’.” – John O’Donohue

Nov 6

Full of Magical Things

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”― W.B. Yeats

“The only place to begin is where I am, and whether by desire or disaster, I am here. My being here is not dependent on my recognition of the fact. I am here anyway. But it might help if I could learn to look around.”― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

For sharper senses
Quick laughter
Capacity for awe and wonder
To learn, relearn, learn anew
To look around
Sight to see sacred spaces
On the holy ground of ordinary days.

“May we find our foundation in the work of Love; demanding, tiring, true and human and holy.”― Pádraig Ó Tuama, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community

Oct 30

Uninhibited. Unafraid. Untethered. 

“God is more time than schedules, more grace than boundaries, more everything than the imaginable.”― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native

“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

More space, margins, imagination
Less busy, noise, doing
More and less
Awe and gratitude
Beauty and wonder
Always arriving, becoming, unfolding
Time does not stop, rewind, jump ahead
Today is what lies before each of us
For grace, sense and capacity to be here fully
Uninhibited. Unafraid. Untethered.

“You are a human being. You are always arriving.”― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Living Resistance

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