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Posts tagged ‘Contemplation’

Feb 25

Sacred Shaping

“The soul speaks its truth only under quiet, inviting and trustworthy conditions…If we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we’re waiting for may well emerge.” – Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

“The miracle, upside-down work of God is that our failure isn’t an obstacle, it’s an opportunity to remember to sink into God. Not having what it takes is not a liability, it’s a prerequisite. Maybe there is hope for us after all.”― Emily P. Freeman, A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live

In the putting down.
In rest and reflection.
In slowing.
Clenched fists opening.
Seeds falling.
Seeds taking root.
To receive something not of our doing, efficiency and striving.
Borne of our not doing, of our very being.
Wintering to prepare for the brilliance of spring.
In the putting down, in the pause, in the stillness.
We discern what to pick up again.
What to leave behind.
Reshaped, renewed, refreshed.
Sacred shaping at work.

“Be faithful to plant. Release the growing to God. Open up clenched fists and let the seeds drop into the ground, let them burrow down deep and do their secret work in the dark. Sacred shaping happens in the waiting.”― Emily P. Freeman, A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live

Feb 15

Calm and Grace

“Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world.”― Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses

Although life is hard in pace
Lose not thy calm and grace.
If thee are not tender
Vow not to surrender
Eternity lies right before thy face.”
― Ana Claudia Antunes, ACross Tic

 Words soft, kind.
Ears open, attune.
Slowing to notice, awake.
Create calm in chaos.
Grace in this place.
Observe. Listen. Wonder.
Awe in thin places, still points.

“Listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don’t have to do anything else. We don’t have to advise, or coach, or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen.”― Margaret J. Wheatley

Jan 24

Marvelous Promise

“When I looked, I knew I might never again see so much of the earth so beautiful, the beautiful being something you know added to something you see, in a whole that is different from the sum of its parts. What I saw might have been just another winter scene, although an impressive one. But what I knew was that the earth underneath was alive and that by tomorrow, certainly by the day after, it would be all green again. So what I saw because of what I knew was a kind of death with the marvelous promise of less than a three-day resurrection.”― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

“We find that, all along, we had what we needed from the beginning and that in the end we have returned to its essence, an essence we could not understand until we had experienced the actual heartbreak of the journey.”― David Whyte, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

Pausing
Slowing
Looking
Listening
Quiet
Reflection
Time unfolding
Threads weaving together to tapestry
Discovery
Renewal
Pieces to pattern
Wholeness
Thresholds to cross
Transformation
Thin spaces of discernment and clarity
Grace unfolding and holding
Trust, unwavering
Rising up again and again
Knowing wherever, whatever, all is well
May lucidity, understanding, and peace come to you on your journey
To lighten the load, widen your view, and welcome you home.

“For it is not knowing much, but realising and relishing things interiorly, that contents and satisfies the soul.”― Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises

Jan 8

To Wonder, To Wander

“You have the power to live in the now despite that inner nudge pushing you out of the moment toward perfection and productivity.” – Rachel Macy Stafford, Hands Free Life

“…which causes me to wonder, my own purpose on so many days as humble as the spider’s, what is beautiful that I make? What is elegant? What feeds the world?”― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

What causes you to wonder?
Go there each day for a visit.
As close as a walk, the sky, a glance.
Creating rather than production.
Imperfect effort over perfect stasis.
Wander, pause, allow.
Be filled with awe.
Completely awake and thrown out of the nest of complacency and busyness.
Feed yourself, feed the world.
Wonder, awe, delight to you this day.
Found in the wandering and the wondering.

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land.”― Dani Shapiro, Inheritance

Nov 4

The Numinous

“Great is the man who has not lost his childlike heart.”― Mencius

“In fact I think I prefer a strange tangle of both, an idea with porous boundaries that keeps me guessing. We are not offered any definite conclusions, only the continuing quest. Certainties harden us, and eventually we come to defend them as if the world can’t contain a multiplicity of views. We are better off staying soft. It gives us room to grow and absorb, to make space for all the other glorious notions that will keep coming at us across a lifetime.”― Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age

Comma,
Period.
Pause…
Still point
Deliberate
Rapt
Attention
Of our own conjuring
Wander here often.
Weave awe into each day.

“I think I’m beginning to understand that the quest is the point. Our sense of enchantment is not triggered only by grand things; the sublime is note hiding in distant landscapes. The awe-inspiring, the numinous, is all around us, all the time. It is transformed by our deliberate attention. It becomes valuable when we value it. It becomes meaningful when we invest in meaning. The magic is of our own conjuring. ”― Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age

Jul 30

Sunday Slow

“Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes.” – Philibert Joseph Roux

“Sunday is the golden clasp that binds together the volume of the week.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sunday slow.
Enter the flow.
Timing.
Do not wait too long.
Do not go too fast.
Find the rhythm and ease.
The music of a new day.
Sacred ground.
Dance.
Welcome all that comes your way.
Sunday and each day.

“Sometimes I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday. It is like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain. You can feel the silent and invisible life.” – Marilynne Robinson

Jul 29

In All Things

“There is the music of Heaven in all things.”― Hildegard of Bingen

“Glance at the sun. See the moon and the stars. Gaze at the beauty of the Earth’s greenings. Now, think.”― Hildegard von Bingen

Observation.
Inquiry.
Silence.
Reverence.
Awe.
Wonder.
Beauty.

The sun.
The moon.
The stars.
Pink flowers, all flowers.
Music in all things.
When we listen with our soul.
See with our heart.
Love with no conditions.

“The soul is the greening life force of the flesh, for the body grows and prospers through her, just as the earth becomes fruitful when it is moistened. The soul humidifies the body so it does not dry out, just like the rain which soaks into the earth.”― Hildegarde of Bingen

Jul 28

Grounded and Reaching

“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?” – Robert Browning

“That we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.”― Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

In struggles and ease.
The blending of both.
In all the in between.
Earth and sky.
Grounded and reaching.
Allow joy in.
Moments of bliss woven through the weight of being.
Rest too.
Imagination a must.
Look up and around.
Out and within.
Expanse and immensity.
Eyes on today, glancing at the road ahead, not behind.
A step at a time.
Breath in and out.
Give and take, give more.
Be present to it all.
Absorb light, cast it back out.

“Blessed are those who give without remembering and take without forgetting.” – Elizabeth Bibesco

Jul 24

The Useful Thing

“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.”― T.S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

“Footfalls echo in the memory, down the passage we did not take, towards the door we never opened, into the rose garden.”― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

There are still passages to take, doors to open, flowers to gaze upon.
Learn from regrets but don’t keep carrying them, missing the present.
Beginnings, endings, seasons, cycles, circles.
Time is passing.
Do not waste it.
Be present in today alone and do the work.
Play, delight, find joy in the ordinary moments before you.
Do the useful thing.

“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”― T.S. Eliot

May 31

Off Course, Rerouting

“The act of meditation is being spacious.”― Sogyal Rinpoche

“Welcome the life that takes you off course. A plan derailed, a life surrendered, a broken bondage”― Rebekah Lyons

Plans change, never happen, go in a different direction.
Lean in. Move through. Keep going.
You never know what is just around the corner.
Create space and margins for new places.
Ever unfolding and becoming.
Make new plans.
Keep dreaming.
Taking action, expend effort.
Accepting different endings.
Always beginning again and again.

“Act, and God will act.” – Joan of Arc

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