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Posts tagged ‘Contemplation’

Oct 4

Seek and Listen

“if you will go where you’ve never gone before, you will see God like you’ve never seen him before.”― Annie F. Downs, Let’s All Be Brave: Living Life with Everything You Have

“When you take the time to draw on your listening-imagination, you will begin to hear this gentle voice at the heart of your life. It is deeper and surer than all the other voices of disappointment, unease, self-criticism and bleakness. All holiness is about learning to hear the voice of your own soul. It is always there and the more deeply you learn to listen, the greater surprises and discoveries that will unfold. To enter into the gentleness of your own soul changes the tone and quality of your life. Your life is no longer consumed by hunger for the next event, experience or achievement. You learn to come down from the treadmill and walk on the earth. You gain a new respect for yourself and others and you learn to see how wonderfully precious this one life is. You begin to see through the enchanting veils of illusion that you had taken for reality. You no longer squander yourself on things and situations that deplete your essence. You know now that your true source is not outside you. Your soul is your true source and a new energy and passion awakens in you. John O’Dononhue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

Seek
Inquire
Listen
Respond
Cathedrals of the soul.

“But for us the road unfurls itself, we don’t stop walking, we know there is far to go. ”― Denise Levertov

Sep 30

Deep Dive, Surface Anew

“A great ship asks deep water.”― George Herbert

“By all means use sometimes to be alone.
Salute thyself: see what thy soul doth wear.
Dare to look in thy chest; for ’tis thine own:
And tumble up and down what thou find’st there.
Who cannot rest till he good fellows find,
He breaks up house, turns out of doors his mind.”
― George Herbert, The Temple: The Poetry of George Herbert

Within
Inquiry and revelation
Deep waters
Surety of tide
Rhythm and rhyme
Surface anew, bouy
In and out
Like breath
Close up and pull back
Ground to horizon
Shift in view
Give and receive
Conductor of this day
What will you compose?

“Peace, prattler.”― George Herbert

Sep 20

Tips and Dust

“The true harvest of my life is intangible – a little star dust caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched.”― Henry David Thoreau

“Direct your eye inward, and you’ll find / A thousand regions in your mind / Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be / Expert in home-cosmography”― Henry David Thoreau

Busy, rushing, noise
Distractions, short cuts, avoidance
Clear clutter, in and out
Go off path
Make room, create margin, horizons
Pause, ask, listen
Partake and dive into wonder, awe, reverence
Hidden in moments
Harvest of life
Abundance in tips and dust.

“I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.”― Henry David Thoreau

Sep 7

Fruits of Labor

“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, The Use Of Life

“Most of the things we need to be most fully alive never come in busyness. They grow in rest.”― Mark Buchanan, The Holy Wild

To slow, pause, pull over.
Daily rest.
Refueling, replenishment, regeneration.
Becoming, being, blooming.
Work, put it down, play.
Enjoy the fruits of labor.

“The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of room, not try to be or do anything whatever.”― May Sarton

Aug 15

Sweet Honey of Grace

“…when you are convinced that all the exits are blocked, either you take to believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird. The miracle is that the honey is always there, right under your nose, only you were too busy searching elsewhere to realize it. The worst is not death but being blind, blind to the fact that everything about life is in the nature of the miraculous.”― Henry Miller

“Each person is born with an unencumbered spot, free of expectation and regret, free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry; an umbilical spot of grace where we were each first touched by God. It is this spot of grace that issues peace.

To know this spot of Inwardness is to know who we are, not by surface markers of identity, not by where we work or what we wear or how we like to be addressed, but by feeling our place in relation to the Infinite and by inhabiting it. This is a hard lifelong task, for the nature of becoming is a constant filming over of where we begin, while the nature of being is a constant erosion of what is not essential. Each of us lives in the midst of this ongoing tension, growing tarnished or covered over, only to be worn back to that incorruptible spot of grace at our core.

When the film is worn through, we have moments of enlightenment, moments of wholeness, moments of Satori as the Zen sages term it, moments of clear living when inner meets outer, moments of full integrity of being, moments of complete Oneness. And whether the film is a veil of culture, of memory, of mental or religious training, of trauma or sophistication, the removal of that film and the restoration of that timeless spot of grace is the goal of all therapy and education.

Regardless of subject matter, this is the only thing worth teaching: how to uncover that original center and how to live there once it is restored. We call the filming over a deadening of heart, and the process of return, whether brought about through suffering or love, is how we unlearn our way back to God”― Mark Nepo, Unlearning Back to God: Essays on Inwardness, 1985-2005

Unlearning
Unencumbered
Becoming
Sweet honey of grace
Of awe, wonder, reverence
Presence and knowing
In the unknowing.

“I was operating on the unspoken assumption that my inner world would be filled with life, peace, and joy once my external world was perfect.”― John Ortberg, Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You

Feb 11

The Pause…to Peace

“Practice the pause. Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you’re about to react harshly and you’ll avoid doing and saying things you’ll later regret.”― Lori Deschene

“Regardless of our circumstances, we always have a choice. We can choose more of the same; or we can recognize this moment is different and that we can be different, too.”― Lori Deschene, Tiny Wisdom: On Mindfulness

Turn off autopilot
Disrupt habit
Resist busy
Interrupt spiraling
Ground in gratitude
Wait in wonder
Rest in stillness
Pause, peace, presence.

“If we can observe and understand how our thoughts are impacting us, we can change who we’re being and how we’re experiencing the world.”― Lori Deschene, Tiny Wisdom: On Mindfulness

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

Oct 16

Two Lives

“This sky
Where we live
Is no place to lose your wings
So love, love
Love.”― Hafez, The Gift

“My time is too short:
I want the essence,
my soul is in a hurry.
I don’t have many sweets
in the package anymore.
I want to live next to human people,
very human,
who know how to laugh at their mistakes,
and who are not inflated by their triumphs,
and who take on their responsibilities.
Thus, human dignity is defended, and we move towards truth and honesty.
It is the essential that makes life worth living.
I want to surround myself with people who know how to touch hearts, people who have been taught by the hard blows of life to grow with gentle touches of the soul.
Yes, I’m in a hurry, I’m in a hurry to live with the intensity that only maturity can give.
I don’t intend to waste any of the leftover sweets.
I am sure they will be delicious, much more than what I have eaten so far.
My goal is to reach the end satisfied
and at peace with my loved ones
and my conscience.
We have two lives.
And the second begins when you realize you only have one.” – Mário Raul de Morais Andrade

Urgency to slow, deepen
Attention to find beauty and joy woven in this very day
Seen with fresh eyes, open heart
Reverence for presence
Love, grace, gratitude
Awe, wonder, delight
Kindness, light, love
Rooted and in flight.

“The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.”― Søren Kierkegaard

Sep 21

How to Live Well

“When earth and sky collide, it’s a dance older than time.”― Heidi Barr, Collisions of Earth and Sky

“Practicing presence is remembering how to live.”― Heidi Barr, 12 Tiny Things

Silence
Within
Reflection
Presence
Kindness
Contemplation
Empathy
Gentleness
Prayer
Gratitude
Generosity
Beauty
Awe
Joy
Curiosity
Wonder
Hope
Daily prescription
To live well in this world
Catch and cast light.

“life, you will fill me with joy in your presence.” – Thomas Keating, The Daily Reader for Contemplative Living

Sep 20

Astonishment and Delight

“Every dew wet apple blossom, every garden plot filled with creeping flowers and weeds, each crimson leaf, each sparkle in a newly white morning – each nuance of creation offers up a sense of place and rhythm.”― Heidi Barr, Woodland Manitou: To Be on Earth

“We applaud in silent awe
at how something as simple
as the alignment of
water
trees
light
creates a masterpiece
every single day,
just by existing.”
― Heidi Barr, Cold Spring Hallelujah

Color, light, nuance
Astonishment, delight, awe
Patiently waiting to be found, held
Already here and now
Woven in the ordinary present
Awaiting our awakening
Backdrop to forefront
Attention, noticing, proximity
Clean your glasses
Look again.

“What i want in life
is an aptitude for astonishment
room for unanticipated delight.”
― Heidi Barr, Cold Spring Hallelujah

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