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Posts tagged ‘Contemplation’

Mar 11

Width and Depth

“You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.”― H. L. Mencken

“Repose, leisure, peace, belong among the elements of happiness. If we have not escaped from harried rush, from mad pursuit, from unrest, from the necessity of care, we are not happy. And what of contemplation? Its very premise is freedom from the fetters of workaday busyness. Moreover, it itself actualizes this freedom by virtue of being intuition.”― Josef Pieper, Happiness and Contemplation

Revelation rather than rules
Peace rather than pursuit
Slow over speed
Direction rather than precision
Pause rather than push
Settling rather than spiraling
Space and margins
Contemplation and reflection
Grace and gratitude
Width and depth
Fresh legs, clear eyes, quiet spirit, soul awakening
Leisure is not a luxury rather a necessity, daily
Rest, root, re-enter

“… the greatest menace to our capacity for contemplation is the incessant fabrication of tawdry empty stimuli which kill the receptivity of the soul.”― Josef Pieper, Happiness and Contemplation

Feb 18

All Things Counter

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.” – Emily Levine

Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things–
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced–fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.”

Winter to spring
Bloom bootcamp
Certain, brilliant, true
In the waiting
Colors plan
Fragrance plots
Hope roots deep
Inscape into order and purpose
Winter to spring.

“All the world is full of inscape and chance left free to act falls into an order as well as purpose.”― Gerard Manley Hopkins

Jan 26

Prayer of Presence

“God’s love isn’t based on me. It’s simply placed on me. And it’s the place from which I should live . . . loved.”― Lysa TerKeurst, Uninvited

“Give yourself time to make a prayer that will become the prayer of your soul.
Listen to the voices of longing in your soul. Listen to your hungers.
Give attention to the unexpected that lives around the rim of your life.
Listen to your memory and to the inrush of your future, to the voices of those near you and those you have lost.
Out of all of that attention to your soul, make a prayer that is big enough for your wild soul, yet tender enough for your shy and awkward vulnerability; that has enough healing to gain the ointment of divine forgiveness for your wounds; enough truth and vigor to challenge your blindness and complacency; enough graciousness and vision to mirror your immortal beauty.
Write a prayer that is worthy of the destiny to which you have been called.” – John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes

The gift of pause, time, attention
Soft whispers and echoes
Still small voice
Prayer of presence, beauty, love
Write your prayer of today.

“The way we can allow ourselves to do what we need to, no matter what others may say or do, is to choose love and defy fear.” – Martha Beck

Jan 11

Slow Ride, Long Cut

“The glory of God is the human person fully alive.”― Irenaeus of Lyons

“In Buddhism, the concept of “being busy as a form of laziness” refers to the idea that constantly filling one’s time with activities, often superficial or distracting, can be a way of avoiding deeper self-reflection and spiritual practice, essentially acting as a form of mental laziness, even if outwardly appearing very busy; this is often called “Kausīdya” in Sanskrit, meaning ‘spiritual sloth.’”- AI search

Slow, pause, stop.
Look up and in to see expanse, depth, width.
Anchor, root, reach, imagine.
Less busy, more reflection.
Shorten the list to the essentials, discard the rest.
Recalibrate, reroute, carry on.
Intuition of inner compass.
Fully alive, enjoying the journey.
Travel lightly, with awe, wonder and gratitude.
The long cut.

“I was wise enough never to grow up,
while fooling people into believing I had.”― Margaret Mead

Dec 9

Atmosphere of Possibility

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking out new landscapes but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

“Desire demands only a constant attention to the unknown gravitational field which surrounds us and from which we can recharge ourselves every moment, as if breathing from the atmosphere of possibility itself. A life’s work is not a series of stepping-stones onto which we calmly place our feet, but more like an ocean crossing where there is no path, only a heading, a direction, which, of itself, is in conversation with the elements.”― David Whyte, Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity

Same place.
Fresh eyes.
Open heart.
Fertile ground.
Till. Seed. Feed. Wait.
Discovery. Attention. Awe. Wonder.
Rooted and rising in love.
A life’s work.

“Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.”― Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Dec 4

Yield to Silence

“Sometimes it’s the quiet currents that tell the deepest truths.” – Stephanie Duncan Smith, Even After Everything

“A day of Silence
Can be a pilgrimage in itself.

A day of Silence
Can help you listen
To the Soul play
Its marvelous lute and drum.

Is not most talking
A crazed defense of a crumbling fort?

I thought we came here
To surrender in Silence,

To yield to Light and Happiness,

To Dance within,
In celebration of Love’s Victory”
― Hafez, I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy

Pilgrimage of silence.
A day, an hour, a few minutes.
Woven through the day.
Beams, chards, threads.
Peace awaits.
Yield.

“The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before… .What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you begin to grasp what it was you missed, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, watching God’s [back] fade in the distance. So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running. For rushing. For worrying. For pushing. For now, stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon.”– Jan L. Richardson, Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas

Dec 3

Beauty Distilled

“How
Did the rose
Ever open its heart
And give to this world
All its
Beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light
Against its Being.
Otherwise,
We all remain
Too Frightened”― Hafez

“I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.
Even After All this time The Sun never says to the Earth, “You owe me.” Look What happens With a love like that, It lights the whole sky.

Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.”― Hafez

In the hurry
Doing
Performing
Over functioning
Busy
Pushing
Scarcity and never enough

In the opening
Being
Inviting
Allowing
Abiding
Reflection
Stillness
Abundance overflowing

Astonishing light
Fear dissipates
Beauty appears where it is rooted and blooms
Front and center
Fertile ground
The whole sky
Fresh eyes, soft heart, arms open.

“When all your desires are distilled
You will cast just two votes:
To love more,
And be happy.”― Hafez

Nov 21

The Noble Art

“One thing I’ve learned in the woods is that there is no such thing as random. Everything is steeped in meaning, colored by relationships, one thing with another.”― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.” – Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living

In the choosing of the doing.
More in the not doing.
From transactional to relational.
Slowing and pausing.
Pruning to grow.
What is most important?
Put your effort and attention there.
The noble art of choosing well.

“In order to seek one’s own direction, one must simplify the mechanics of ordinary, everyday life.” – Plato

Nov 12

A Kernal Bursting

“Beauty surrounds us.” ― Rumi

“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.” ― Herman Hesse, Bäume: Betrachtungen und Gedichte

Be still.
Be quiet.
Listen.
Observe.
Examine.
With your heart, not your opinion.
The world, starting with self, needs love, not your judgment.
We make God in our image – small, petty, othering, self-righteous.
No wonder people run away fast.
We are made in God’s image.
Beyond comprehension by our underused imagination.
When we discover that, we change the world.
Invite. Welcome. Embrace.
Be kind. Love well.

“And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself?” ― Rumi

Oct 11

Sweet Territory

“Reflection is a flower of the mind, giving out a wholesome fragrance.” – Desiderius Erasmus

“In the sweet territory of silence we touch the mystery. It’s the place of reflection and contemplation, and it’s the place where we can connect with the deep knowing, to the deep wisdom way.” – Angeles Arrien

Anchor and root
In the slowing
Seeing
Observing
Listening
Inquiring
Listening again
Reflection
The path to understanding
Insight
Revelation
Discernment
Gratitude
Joy
Clarity
Peace
Dig, delve, deep dive
Surface
Move out from there
True north

“It’s on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.” – Claude Monet

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