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Posts tagged ‘Beauty’

May 4

Dancing with Daffodils

“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.” – William Wordsworth

May

May, and among the miles of leafing,
blossoms storm out of the darkness—
windflowers and moccasin flowers. The bees
dive into them and I too, to gather
their spiritual honey. Mute and meek, yet theirs
is the deepest certainty that this existence too—
this sense of well-being, the flourishing
of the physical body—rides
near the hub of the miracle that everything
is a part of, is as good
as a poem or a prayer, can also make
luminous any dark place on earth. – Mary Oliver

Vibrancy
Light
Unfolding and unfurling
Rhythm of spring
Unfolding and unfurling
Breathing in flowers
Pay attention
Enter the delight and bloom bursting
Dance with daffodils, spiritual honey.
Nectar of awe, wonder, grace, gratitude.

“Keep everything open and live from openness to openness.”― Francis Lucille, The Perfume of Silence

May 1

Light and Lightly, Sail

“Light, be it particle or wave, has force: you rig a giant sail and go. The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind. Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff.” – Annie Dillard

“I don’t want to live a small life. Open your eyes,
open your hands. I have just come
from the berry fields, the sun

kissing me with its golden mouth all the way
(open your hands) and the wind-winged clouds
following along thinking perhaps I might

feed them, but no I carry these heart-shapes
only to you. Look how many how small
but so sweet and maybe the last gift

I will ever bring to anyone in this
world of hope and risk, so do.
Look at me. Open your life, open your hands.”

— Mary Oliver, from Red Bird

The path of today
Full presence, fresh eyes, new hope
Look again, once more, longer
Poetry of attention
Prose of wonder
Song of delight
Open your hands
Open your life
Walking lightly in the light.

“To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter… to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in spring — these are some of the rewards of the simple life.”― John Burroughs, Leaf and Tendril

Apr 30

Spirit of Infancy and Awe

“In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, — he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me”― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

“The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

Radiance of the world.
Power of nature.
To transform, transmit, transcend.
Winter melting to spring.
Wild delights, simple pleasures.
Slow down, pull over, look around.
Let peace enter and beauty flow.

“The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musician, the architect, seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world on one point, and each in his several work to satisfy the love of beauty which stimulates him to produce.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

Apr 29

May Knocking

“The garden teaches patience.” – Alfred Austin

“Yes, I will spend the livelong day
With Nature in this month of May;
And sit beneath the trees, and share
My bread with birds whose homes are there;
While cows lie down to eat, and sheep
Stand to their necks in grass so deep;
While birds do sing with all their might,
As though they felt the earth in flight.
This is the hour I dreamed of, when
I sat surrounded by poor men;
And thought of how the Arab sat
Alone at evening, gazing at
The stars that bubbled in clear skies;

And of young dreamers, when their eyes
Enjoyed methought a precious boon
In the adventures of the Moon
Whose light, behind the Clouds’ dark bars,
Searched for her stolen flocks of stars.
When I, hemmed in by wrecks of men,
Thought of some lonely cottage then
Full of sweet books; and miles of sea,
With passing ships, in front of me;
And having, on the other hand,
A flowery, green, bird-singing land.” – William Henry Davies

Poetry, pause, praise, prose of spring
May approaches, cusp
Invitation to slowly walk, noticing
The bridge to summer song
Saunter, witness, partake
The unfolding to fullness
May knocking, open the door.

“Among the changing months, May stands confest the sweetest, and in fairest colors dressed.” — James Thomson

Apr 26

Sudden Lift

“Shall we do without hope? Some days
there will be none. But now
to the dry and dead woods floor
they come again, the first
flowers of the year, the assembly
of the faithful, the beautiful,
wholly given to being.”
― Wendell Berry, Leavings

“Bless the moment that catches you off guard—
a laugh, a moment of levity,
a sudden lift.

Bless the laughter that feels almost wrong,
and the delight that doesn’t match the circumstances.

May you notice all that is unnecessary and beautiful—
the ridiculous, the fleeting, the most-alive.

And when joy feels impossible,
may it find you (or you find it) anyway.” – Kate Bowler

Softly and tenderly
Brisk and bold
Light and easy
Solo to choir of flowers bursting in color and harmony
Ferocious love, feisty hope, sudden lifts of delight.
To find and be found.

“May we be…the ones who hold our opinions loosely and yet love ferociously.”― Sarah Bessey, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith

Apr 25

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For the Beauty of the Earth Springing

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” — William Shakespeare

“For the beauty of the earth,
for the glory of the skies,
for the love which from our birth
over and around us lies;
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise.

For the beauty of each hour
of the day and of the night,
hill and vale, and tree and flower,
sun and moon, and stars of light;
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise.

“For the joy of ear and eye,
for the heart and mind’s delight,
for the mystic harmony,
linking sense to sound and sight;
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise.” – Folliot S. Pierpoint

Awestruck
Beauty
Silenced to reverence
To moments where heaven meets earth
Nature showing how to be fully alive
Spring, Easter, Resurrection
Unfolding and unfurling
For the sense to sing hymns of grateful praise.

“I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put together.” — John Burroughs

Apr 24

To Listen, Bearing Witness

“the holy things we need for healing and sustenance are almost always the same as the ordinary things right in front of us.”― Nadia Bolz-Weber, Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People

“Sometimes our most holy calling is to listen, to bear witness.”― Sarah Bessey, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith

The holy things
Front and center
Noticing and attention required
Quiet. Reflection. Beauty.
Rhythm of waves
Home in wilderness
Peace woven in now
Not in doing, trying, striving
Rather in bearing witness
With reverence, curiosity, kindness.

“The wilderness is home to God, even the wilderness inside you. Your life is already a place where God is quite at home.”― Sarah Bessey, Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith

Apr 23

Look Around and Up

“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

“And the body is holding its losses like a fist. And a fleshy hope
is opening to an unprecedented vastness. And whatever we think
we are leaving behind will keep insisting. And the things we desire
will elude us. And our efforts will pose as failure. And we will not recognize
how far we’ve come. And we will solve one problem and create another.
And we will feel broken. And we will not be broken. And the silence
will be deafening. And we will love destructively. And no one
will appear to be listening. And there will be too many doors
to choose from. And we will keep saying, “I don’t know how to do this.”
And we will be more capable than we ever imagined.” – Maya Stein

Ebb and flow
In and outBoth and
Yes no
All of the above
In the wrestling and reckoning
Peace and ease
Vastness and awe
Wholeness woven of pieces
Gracious and spacious
Capable and mighty
Poetry of presence
Foundation of love.

“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

Apr 22

Thick with Beauty, Possibility

“Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars.”― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

“Lost as we feel, there is no better
Compass than compassion.
We find ourselves not by being
The most seen, but the most seeing.”
― Amanda Gorman, Call Us What We Carry

It’s right there
Front and center
At our feet
Holding our hand
In teaspoons and buckets
Slivers and slices
Glances and stares
Woven in and through each ordinary day
Beauty, grace, joy
Not the way we expect
Or command, demand
If we put down our rules, ways, shoulds and whens
Release our tight grip, open hands
The view widens, presence deepens
Colors are brighter
Hues and nuance sharpen
Steps are lighter, skip and hop
Reverence and awe
It’s right there
Thick with divine possibility, indeed.

“Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they are finished.” – Daniel Gilbert

Apr 19

Grand Show

“This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”― John Muir, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir

“Everybody needs beauty…places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul alike.”― John Muir

Drink in blue sky
Hold brilliant sun
Pull over
Wander off road
The work of not working
Of abiding, tending, praising, pause
To notice, to be awestruck, to delight
Ocean of exultation
Grand show
Beauty
Deep breath, releasing sigh
Suddenly, you are alive
May you meet beauty today
And sit with her.

“Close your eyes and turn your face into the wind.
Feel it sweep along your skin in an invisible ocean of exultation.
Suddenly, you know you are alive.”― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

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