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Posts tagged ‘Flowers’

Feb 4

Opened to Air, Carrying Love

“Likewise, every disturbance, whether resolved or not, is making space for an inner engagement. As a shovel digs up and displaces earth, in a way that must seem violent to the earth, an interior space is revealed for the digging. In just this way, when experience opens us, it often feels violent and the urge, quite naturally, is to refill that opening, to make it the way it was. But every experience excavates a depth, which reveals its wisdom once opened to air.”― Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What Is Sacred

“Hope is the hardest love we carry.”― Jane Hirshfield, The Lives of the Heart

Beneath the surface
Above the noise
Beyond the chaos
Quiet and calm
Soft whisper
Invitation
Pause, abide, engage
Breaking ground
Open to air
Carrying hope, light, love.

“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.”― Thomas Paine

Jan 28

Dappled with Light and Love

“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in–what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.”― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Like most hearts, it was complicated, shaded with dark and dappled with light.”― Kate DiCamillo

Love
Not the surface greeting card stuff
The kind that sticks and stays
That accompanies and sits quietly in grief
That leaps with joy in the wins
And all of the ordinary days in between
Tough, resilient, soft, kind
Sees humanity in others
That does not diminish in disagreement
Nor demand agreement
No lectures, shame, othering, pontificating, I told you so, I was right
Found in small acts
Yielding
Conversation and connection
May you find this kind of love today
And offer it first without condition
Be a helper, a door opener, a homecoming
Cast light, love well

“Do you know what hurts so very much? It’s love. Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked that means pain. There are two things we can do when this happens. We can kill that love so that it stops hurting. But then of course part of us dies, too. Or we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel.”― Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom

Jan 27

Poetry in Flowers

“I must have flowers, always, and always.”― Claude Monet

“Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time – we haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.”― Georgia O’Keeffe, Georgia O’Keeffe

Make time
A sliver, a slice
For beauty
Noticing
Attention
Awe
Wonder
Light
Color
Joy
Poetry in flowers
In the pause, peace rises
Spilling into the day.

“In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends.”― Okakura Kakuzo, The Book of Tea

Jan 20

Moments Blooming, Full Color

“Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies.
And be it gash or gold it will not come
Again in this identical disguise.”― Gwendolyn Brooks, Annie Allen

“Wherever life can grow, it will.
It will sprout out,
and do the best it can.
I give you what I have.
You don’t get all your questions answered in this world.
How many answers shall be found
in the developing world of my Poem?
I don’t know. Nevertheless I put my Poem,
which is my life, into your hands, where it will do the best it can.”
― Gwendolyn Brooks, Winnie

Life blooming.
In the moment.
Woven in plain sight of this day.
Notice and participate.

“She was learning to love moments. To love moments for themselves. ”― Gwendolyn Brooks

Jan 3

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Gardening

“The many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden.”― Sir Thomas More

“I have learned that
everything has its own language and that
if I listen carefully to the birds and the creatures,
and even the grasses,
I will hear the sound of God
in the music of the silence.” – Catherine Garland, Learning Life poem

The gift of pause, reflection
Music of silence
Of thresholds
Bridges
Blank canvases
Fresh beginnings
New day, new month, new year
Plant seeds
Tend your garden
Ever blooming, becoming, arriving
Cast light, color, gratitude, kindness, joy

“I did not know that I could only get the most out of life by giving myself up to it.”― Marion Milner, A Life of One’s Own

Dec 14

Rooted, Bright, Joy

“Indeed, frequent positive emotions—feelings of joy, delight, contentment, serenity, curiosity, interest, vitality, enthusiasm, vigor, thrill, and pride—are the very hallmark of happiness.”― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness

“we habitually fail to enjoy, savor, and live in the present, as our minds are often someplace else. However, when you think about it, the present moment is all we are really guaranteed.”― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness

Tilling, seeding, tending
Grounding, rooting, anchoring
Gratitude, beauty, joy
Smack in the middle of imperfection, incompleteness
Slowing to notice
Harnessing thoughts, moving to intentions, spilling into small actions
Daily process
Deliberate practice
Savoring the simple in the ordinary
Rapt presence in this day

“Gratitude is an antidote to negative emotions, a neutralizer of envy, hostility, worry, and irritation. It is savoring; it is not taking things for granted; it is present oriented.”― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness

Nov 21

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Lean Forward into the Present Tense

“Lean forward into your life…catch the best bits and the finest wind. Just tip your feathers in flight a wee bit and see how dramatically that small lean can change your life.”― Mary Anne Radmacher, Lean Forward Into Your Life

“living eulogy.
she danced.
she sang. she took.
she gave.
she loved.
she created.
she dissented. she enlivened.
she saw. she grew. she sweated.
she changed.
she learned. she laughed.
she shed her skin.
she bled on the pages of her days,
she walked through walls,
she lived with intention.”
― Mary Anne Radmacher

Change it all to present tense – thoughts, words, actions
Dance, sing, take, give, love, create, dissent, enliven, see, grow, sweat, change, learn, laugh, shed, bleed, walk through walls, live with intention
Present tense, this day alone
Leaning, leaping, lunging into life – today
With joy, anticipation, grit, gratitude, grief, kindness, generosity, hope, fear, courage, laughter, faith, trust, enthusiasm, colors, sequins, confetti, sprinkles, persistence, grace, love.

“No such thing, the queen said, as too many sequins.”― Mark Doty

Oct 5

To Stay Alive

“Like a flower, feel yourself rise above and begin to open.”― A.D. Posey

“Like a flower, feel yourself rise above and begin to open.”― A.D. Posey

“…You should stay alive
As often as possible and keep yourself open
to anything out of place and everything
with nowhere else to go, to carry what’s left
of your voice out and beyond, into, over,
and under, past, within, outside, between,
among, across, along, and up and around
and to be beside yourself when the spirit moves you…”
― David Wagoner, After the Point of No Return

Widen your view
Crack the window
Open the door
Cross the threshold
Big, beautiful world
Open for business
Of awe, wonder, delight
Stay alive
Curiosity, Inquiry, Discovery

“The world is always open,
Waiting to be discovered.”
― Dejan Stojanovic

Aug 17

Dancing with Daffodils

“Wisdom is oft-times nearer when we stoop
Than when we soar.”― William Wordsworth, The Excursion 1814

“I wandered lonely as a clouds. 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.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.”
― William Wordsworth, I Wander’d Lonely as a Cloud

Floating
Hovering
Rest
Reflection
Joy in presence
Attention rooted in this day alone
Dancing with daffodils.

“Rest and be thankful.”― William Wordsworth

Aug 16

Light, Color, Beauty of Things

“Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her.”― William Wordsworth

“Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher.”― William Wordsworth

Get out of your head
Into nature
Curiosity
Inquiry
Reflection
Being rather than doing
Nowhere to be but here
Fully present in the present
Into the light, color and beauty of things.

“Habit rules the unreflecting herd.”― William Wordsworth

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