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Posts tagged ‘Flowers’

Sep 12

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Shortcut to Awe

“GET OUTDOORS.”― Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life

“Tap into your childlike sense of wonder. Young children are in an almost constant state of awe since everything is so new to them. During your walk, try to approach what you see with fresh eyes, imagining that you’re seeing it for the first time. Take a moment in each walk to take in the vastness of things, for example in looking at a panoramic view or up close at the detail of a leaf or flower. Go somewhere new. Each week, try to choose a new location. You’re more likely to feel awe in a novel environment where the sights and sounds are unexpected and unfamiliar to you. That said, some places never seem to get old, so there’s nothing wrong with revisiting your favorite spots if you find that they consistently fill you with awe. The key is to recognize new features of the same old place.”― Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life

Small things
Abundant in ordinary days
A walk in the woods
Blue sky
Flowers unfolding
Fresh air
Wander and wonder
Vastness, depth, expanse
Same transformed by awe.

“Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world.”― Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life

Sep 5

Unencumbered and Bright

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

To being yourself
Loud and soft
Authentic, brilliant, imperfect
To allow others the same grace
New day, clean slate
Useful, honorable, compassionate
Unencumbered and bright
Blooming in all seasons.

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Aug 11

Harmony of Presence

“To the dark nights, the relief of the moon. The soft earth that forms to cradle the shape of my foot. To the crickets and the birds who sing our world into harmony. To the flowers that wish to sit on my windowsill, the trees that grow to reach the most sunlight. To the grass that sways and soothes. To the webs the spider tirelessly builds overnight only to be torn down in the daylight. To the life that pulses in exaltation below my feet every day that I am alive. To the portal it offers into a remembrance of our wholeness. To our source of unconditional love.”
― Sarah Blondin, Heart Minded: How to Hold Yourself and Others in Love

“In a world that lives like a fist
mercy is not more than waking
with your hands open.”― Mark Nepo

Open hands
Soft heart
Clear eyes
Attentive ears
Sacred, reverence, awe
Dance and delight
Harmony of presence
Altar of this day.

“Mysteriously, as elusive as it is, this moment–where the eye is what it sees, where the heart is what it feels–this moment shows us that what is real is sacred”― Mark Nepo

Jul 7

Slight Shift, Quiet Eyes

“look at the world with quiet eyes.”― Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation

“Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope – a slight change, and all patterns alter.”― Sharon Salzberg

Summer the stage
Slow and savor
Kaleidoscope of color
Bountiful beauty
Vibrancy and growth
Quiet eyes
Soft heart
Travel light
Lovingkindness, peace, ease.

“Restore your attention or bring it to a new level by dramatically slowing down whatever you’re doing.”― Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation

Jul 1

Lavishly Scattered

“There is poetry among the wildflowers.”― Rachel Irene Stevenson

“How lavishly are the flowers scattered over the face of the earth! One of the most perfect and delightful works of the Creation, there is yet no other form of beauty so very common. Abounding in different climates, upon varying soils -not a few here to cheer the sad, a few there to reward the good but countless in their throngs, infinite in their variety, the gift of measureless beneficence wherever man may live, there grow the flowers.”― Susan Fenimore Cooper

The daily call of noticing
Practice of wonder
Rigor of reverence
Discipline of awe
All the beauty lavishly scattered
At our feet, in, on, throughout this very day
Sacred ground
Common, ordinary hours
Alive and flourishing
Pay attention
Linger and loaf
Soft heart
Open arms
Awake and aware
Poetry and prose
Lens of love

“But to live is to be conscious. To walk through a field of flowers and stop to feel the softness of each petal, to inhale the perfume of each blossom.”― Terah Shelton Harris, Where the Wildflowers Grow

May 26

Let Us Dance

“Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair…”― susan polis Schutz

“I do love the beginning of the summer hols,’ said Julian. They always seem to stretch out ahead for ages and ages.’

‘They go so nice and slowly at first,’ said Anne, his little sister. ‘Then they start to gallop.”― Enid Blyton, Five Go Off in a Caravan

Too cold, too hot
Too slow, too fast
Too much, too little
Measure, compare, grumble less
Invite, receive, open up to joy more
Summer’s call to presence, awe, life.
Dance.

“Some of the best memories are made in flip flops.”― Kellie Elmore

May 8

Found World

“Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm.”― John Muir, The Wilderness World of John Muir

“Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s party!’” – Robin Williams

Flowers peaking, trees bursting, blue skies lingering
Spring trifecta
Fireworks of color, fragrance, freshness
Rebirth, creation, transformation
Accept the invitation
Join the party in delight, awe, wonder.

“Put on the mind of morning
To feel the rush of light
Spread slowly inside
The colour and stillness
Of a found world.” – John O’Donohue

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

Apr 27

Spring’s Paintbrush

“Daffodils, blossom and tulips jostle to the front of the stage in April. I love these early perennials: they may be more modest but they nearly all have that one special quality that a plant needs to transform your affections from admiration to affection – charm.” – Monty Don

“There is no glory in star or blossom till looked upon by a loving eye; There is no fragrance in April breezes till breathed with joy as they wander by.” – William Cullen Bryant

Join the rhythm, unfolding of the earth awakening
Greening and rooting
Colors pushing through, seeking the light
Renewal, refreshment, rejoicing
Put down winter
Pick up spring
Tiptoe through the tulips.

“April is a promise that May is bound to keep.” – Hal Borland

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

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