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Posts tagged ‘Flowers’

Mar 1

Kindness Blooming

“Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.” – St. Therese of Lisieux

“There is a kindness that dwells deep down in things; it presides everywhere, often in the places we least expect. The world can be harsh and negative, but if we remain generous and patient, kindness inevitably reveals itself. Something deep in the human soul seems to depend on the presence of kindness; something instinctive in us expects it, and once we sense it we are able to trust and open ourselves.” – John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us

To not succumb
To wait with joy
To act with compassion
To rest for the long journey
Right action, right timing, right way
Repetition, consistency, constancy
Kindness, small acts, curiosity
These reside, remain, rise
To not stray, to remain steadfast, to love well
The perennial bloom of kindness.

“Curiosity lights our way to compassion.”― Shannan Martin, Start with Hello

Feb 23

1 Comment

in the way of beauty

“There’s always a sunrise and always a sunset and it’s up to you to choose to be there for it… put yourself in the way of beauty.”— Cheryl Strayed

“… poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.”― Audre Lorde

To aim
Direct
Guide
Lean
Pursue
Choose
To put yourself in the way of beauty everyday
Sunrise, sunset, flowers, smiles, kindness, generosity, attention, color, laughter, connection, curiosity, joy
Poetry of life
To be made new
Fresh legs to walk out ordinary days
In extraordinary reverence, grace and gratitude

“It is strange how a scrap of poetry works in the mind and makes the legs move in time to it along the road.”― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

Feb 20

New Delight Room

“In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.”― Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank

“This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.” – Rumi

 Make room for new delight.
This day, not some day.
This day, new delight.

“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.”― Viktor Emil Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Feb 17

Dayspring Eastering

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”― Gerard Manley Hopkins

“ELECTED Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.”
― Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems and Prose

Flowers amongst the weeds
Sun behind the clouds
Love beneath the fear
Forefront and backdrop
Choosing beauty to feed and sustain
Transforming ordinary into extraordinary
With a tilt of the head
Opening of the heart
Arms outstretched
Charged with grandeur
Elected silence
Dayspring eastering.

“Let Him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east.”― Gerard Manley Hopkins

Jan 21

Seeds of Transformation

“Things which do not grow and change are dead things.”― Louise Erdrich

“That’s what it takes to get what you want. Not big scary leaps once a year. It takes small, but irritating moves every single day.”― Mel Robbins, Stop Saying You’re Fine: Discover a More Powerful You

Big ideas at the beginning of January.
Big leap, new year, fresh start.
Falling to the wayside.
Waning, fading, dissipating.
Snap out of it.
Eyes on the road of this day.
Reboot, restart, it’s a long game.
Change, growth, transformation.
Recipe of daily actions, repetition, discipline, trying, resilience.
January wasn’t meant to carry it all.
Small acts, shifts, commitment with slip ups along the way.
Know your why.
Do the daily work.
Make mistakes.
Keep going.
And put joy, awe, wonder, connection, delight, laughter, play on your list too.
Thrive.

“Inspiration and information without personal application will never amount to transformation.”― Lysa TerKeurst, Uninvited

Jan 1

Art of Harvesting

“Perhaps the art of harvesting the secret riches of our lives is best achieved when we place profound trust in the act of beginning. Risk might be our greatest ally. To live a truly creative life, we always need to cast a critical look at where we presently are, attempting always to discern where we have become stagnant and where new beginning might be ripening. There can be no growth if we do not remain open and vulnerable to what is new and different. I have never seen anyone take a risk for growth that was not rewarded a thousand times over.” – John O’Donohue

FOR A NEW BEGINNING
by John O’Donohue

“In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.”

First day
First month
New year
Day at a time
Commitments
Actions
Repetition
Starting
Falling
Progress
Lessons
Trying
Getting up again
Restarting
For things you want to change that have built over the years
Plant seeds, nurture, harvest
Time and timing
Set the pace, marathon not sprint
Do the work
Know your why
Give yourself the time, patience, kindness, consistency and grace
To become what is in your heart
Blank slate, start coloring outside the lines
Happy New Year!

Dec 15

Answer the Call

“What is pertinent is the calmness of beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it.”― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

“A little too abstract, a little too wise,
It is time for us to kiss the earth again,
It is time to let the leaves rain from the skies,
Let the rich life run to the roots again.”
― Robinson Jeffers, The Selected Poetry

Root
Anchor
Ground
Fundamentals
Basics
Simplicity
Pay attention
Awake and in awe
The power of wonder
The resilience of hope
Beauty calls each day
Answer

“Hope,’ he said. ‘Damn thing never leaves you alone.”― Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun

Dec 13

Bright Hope

“Every day God invites us on the same kind of adventure. It’s not a trip where He sends us a rigid itinerary, He simply invites us. God asks what it is He’s made us to love, what it is that captures our attention, what feeds that deep indescribable need of our souls to experience the richness of the world He made. And then, leaning over us, He whispers, “Let’s go do that together.”― Bob Goff

“Being engaged is a way of doing life, a way of living and loving. It’s about going to extremes and expressing the bright hope that life offers us, a hope that makes us brave and expels darkness with light. That’s what I want my life to be all about – full of abandon, whimsy, and in love.”― Bob Goff, Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World

A deeper listening
To hear the soft reply
In words and silence
Silence especially
So much to say, to reveal
Hardened dry topsoil tilled
Seeds planted
Nourished in fertile rich soil
Winter rest
Hibernation, rooting, germination
The nonwork work
Waiting, abiding, anticipation
Promise of spring
For new life to rise to the surface
Due time, not our time
Always on time
To bud
To unfold
To bloom
Full abandon, whimsy, love.
Bright, bursting hope.

“You don’t need a plan; you just need to be present.”― Bob Goff, Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World

Dec 1

Roses in December

“God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.”― J.M. Barrie

A Blessing for Beginning Again in Advent by Kate Bowler

God, could this be the year when we see it?
The goodness that is coming,
like starlight from a distant time?

Could this be the Advent when we sense it?
That the springtime of the soul
will one day last forever?

Could this be the Advent when we notice
the inbreaking of your coming promises?
Promises full of blessing:
of truth so clear, so bright
that every shadowy lie must flee away.

Of compassion so deep, so strong
that everyone is encircled in its embrace.
Of restoration so complete, so beautiful
that there is gladness everywhere.
And of justice so satisfying and so right,
that all will be well.

May this Advent be the new beginning,
as we learn to live by the light
of your coming promises.

Glimpsing the world through tears,
while also seeing something
sacred shining through too.

Our Truth. Our Light.
Our Promise incarnate.
Amen.”

First day, last month.
First day of Advent.
The journey all are invited too.
All.
Accept the invitation.
No rules, regulations or membership card required.
May this first day of Advent, first day of the last month of this year.
Be filled with reflection, inquiry, longing, belonging, listening, transformation.
New beginnings, the invitation to all, not some or few.
Trust the anchor.
Hope the kite.
Light in the dark.
Roses in December.

Nov 19

The Work of Blooming

“Flowers don’t open and close according to who is walking by. They open and show their beauty regardless.”― Rebecca Campbell, Light is the New Black

“Balance is not a passive resting place—it takes work, balancing the giving and the taking, the raking out and the putting in.”― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

Our yes or no.
Action or inaction.
Response or reaction.
Daily choosing.
To listen.
To ask questions.
To go deeper.
Than assumptions, judgments, easy answers.
At ease in the knowing and unknowing.
Trusting time and timing.
Slowing and savoring.
Paying attention.
Giving and receiving.
Opening and softening.
The work of becoming, of blooming.

“Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.”― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

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