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Posts tagged ‘Flowers’

Mar 17

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The Wholeness of this Day

“God does not erase our losses, those empty places in our lives, but he does something almost more miraculous. He fills the loss with a sign of his presence.”― Christie Purifoy, Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons

“If I want to abide in this day, to make my home in it, I must only tear my eyes from tomorrow and look around. For there is a wholeness to this day that I do not want to miss.”― Christie Purifoy, Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons

Root and reach.
Rest and flow.
Ease and effort.
Find the sacred holy ground of this day.
Remain here to notice, to pay attention.
In deep long gazes.
In the lift from laughter.
In the small adding up to a good life, moments at a time.
And for honed senses to witness and partake in the present.

“Our lives are stories built of small moments. Ordinary experiences. It is too easy to forget that our days are adding up to something astonishing. We do not often stop to notice the signs and wonders. The writing on the wall. But some days we do.”― Christie Purifoy, Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons

Mar 4

Wings and Wind

“When there is silence,
Give your voice.
When there is darkness,
Shine your light.
When there is desperation,
Offer hope.”
― Tim Fargo

“Who told you adulthood couldn’t feel like childhood? Long days of forgetting what day it is. Wanting to be wherever your wings or the wind dropped you. Filled with secrets and chances and whimsy.”― Darnell Lamont Walker

To be light.
To see new colors.
To breath deeply.
To delight in the hunt.
To dance on the path.
To grow wings and fly.
To whimsy.
From the ordinary to delight.
A child’s view and stance on the world, available to all.
Wind beneath your wings.
Fly a bit today.
Fresh view, new heights.
All that you carry will be there when you return.
Perhaps a bit less heavy.

“Learn to appreciate the caterpillar and the whole process of metamorphosis! The beauty and lightness of the butterfly only exist after going through these phases.”― Karina Fonseca Azevedo

Feb 27

Alive to the Wonder

“The flower doesn’t dream of the bee. It blossoms and the bee comes.”― Mark Nepo

“Lord, this is the simplest prayer. Make it matter again. Color my grayscale vision with every shade of meaning, blues and purples and lilacs for purpose. Reds and pinks for every kind of love. Yellows for insights and ideas that sparkle. And if once cherished dreams need to fade, let them fade. Let me not imagine that each one of my plans must glue my future together. Surprise me. I regret saying that already, but let me come alive to the wonder of this day.” – Kate Bowler, Have a Beautiful Terrible Day

Make it matter again.
Not in grand gestures that fade quickly.
Not in my expectations, plans, demands, requirements.
Not in someday when.
Not in what was and is no more.
In this place, the present moment.
In the ordinary, beauty and color ablaze.
Come alive to the wonder of this day.

“Is the life I’m living the same life that wants to live in me? Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you.” – Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

Feb 23

Friction to Fruition

“Life does not accommodate you, it shatters you. It is meant to, and it couldn’t do it better. Every seed destroys its container or else there would be no fruition.” – Florida Scott-Maxwell

“Friction is necessary. Ease of life leads to complacency and the atrophy of the human will and spirit. Within our struggles lives our strength, within our trials lives our triumphs. Friction creates a platform for change, generates heat and or fervor and creates a motivational charge that gives us an opportunity to be better. A gem cannot be polished without friction and so neither a person without hardships. Friction within and friction without sharpens our senses and revives our internal resolutions. Friction is uncomfortable, hardships are distressing but both are necessary. We cannot light a match without friction nor can we hone steal. Uncomfortable as it may be, our adversity ultimately lights a fire and sharpens our very will to flourish.” ― Jason Versey, A Walk with Prudence

Seeds to flowers.
In time.
In struggle.
In seasons of honing, sharpening, friction, growth is at work.
The path to fruition, a bumpy road with detours, delays, potholes.
The journey longer than we want, beauty always woven through.
Not the way we would choose.
The start is not the finish.
The middle is where we reside.
The finish comes only if we start and keep moving.
Arriving at new start lines.
Keep moving and take joy, awe and wonder on the ride.
From friction to fruition.
And everything in between.
Keep planting seeds.
Flourishing in ordinary days, in extraordinary ways.

“We like things to manifest right away, and they may not. Many times, we’re just planting a seed and we don’t know exactly how it is going to come to fruition. It’s hard for us to realize that what we see in front of us might not be the end of the story.” – Sharon Salzberg

Feb 19

Till the Soil

“Untilled ground, however rich, will bring forth thistles and thorns; so also the mind of man.”― St. Teresa of Avila

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

Opinions, assumptions, judgments, wounds, control, unforgiveness, the past, worry.
Heavy weights to carry.
Rich soil beneath our feet becomes concrete.
Stuck in old ways, patterns, people pleasing, approval seeking.
Put it down.
Again and again.
All that is not yours to carry.
Lighten the load.
Deep breath.
Be kind to yourself.
View broadens.
Soil tilled.
Blooms ready to break ground.
Color, freshness, beauty in changing self, not circumstances.
Open heart, light spirit.
Till the soil of your mind.
Watch what blooms.

“Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.” – Raymond Lindquist

Jan 31

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Once Again

“One clear moment, one of trance
One missed step, one perfect dance
One missed shot, one and only chance
Life is all…but one fleeting glance.”
― Sanober Khan

“Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?”
― Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

Reaction to response.
Bland to flavor.
Blah to burst.
Flat to dimension.
Threads to pattern.
Note to song.
Words to poem.
Trance to transcendence.
Muted to color.
Bud to bloom.
Beneath the surface, the obvious, the same, a stirring, rising, newness awaits our noticing and partaking.
Return to delight, joy, exultation, imagination, awe, wonder.
Once again.

“Change is the end result of all true learning.”― Leo Buscaglia

Jan 30

Dappled

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

“Hope is like love…a ridiculous, wonderful, powerful thing.”― Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

Dappled with color, light, beauty, hope.
May these overcome you today.
To twist, flip, flop you into awe and wonder.
Dappled with delight.

“It is our duty and our joy to communicate our hearts to each other. Words assist us in this task.”― Kate DiCamillo

Jan 20

The Harvest of Presence

“Beauty is the harvest of presence.”― David Whyte

“So may we, in this life
trust

to those elements
we have yet to see

or imagine,
and look for the true

shape of our own self,
by forming it well

to the great
intangibles about us.”

― David Whyte, The House of Belonging

Pause often.
Elevate to see anew.
A fresh perspective on the familiar.

Inquire often.
Listen to hear anew.
A symphony forming from disparate notes.

Open often.
Pumping heart to breathe anew.
Alive with love, light, joy.

“You know that the antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest? … The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.”― David Whyte, Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity

Jan 18

Enchantment

“Enchantment lies in everyday moments if you are observant.”― Amy Leigh Mercree

“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

May you soften, not harden.
Forgive, not carry the weight of resentment.
Praise, not be ungrateful for blessings overflowing that reside next to missing things too.
Wait, not rush into wrong decisions from impatience.
Act, not wait for perfection or the exact path, go off trail, compass rather than precise map.
Be kind, to self and to others, a smile, an embrace.
Empathetic, not judge and assume. Hold a hand with no advice. Be present.
Include, invite and extend belonging, it’s a lonely world. We need each other.
Widen and deepen, center to circumference, it’s a big world awaiting discovery and attention.
May color, beauty, awe, enthusiasm, delight and wonder bloom enchantment in your garden of today.

“Enchantment arises on the threshold between human activity and nature’s presence. It is always a liminal phenomenon, a momentary relationship, made of the right arrangement on stars and planets and elaborate with art by human consciousness.”― Thomas Moore

Jan 16

Keep Moving

“Stop calling your heart broken; your heart works just fine. If you are feeling–love, anger, gratitude, grief–it is because your heart is doing its work. Let it.”― Maggie Smith, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change

“Commit yourself to the present. Loosen your grip on the life you had before—before a loss, an upheaval, a change that called everything into question—so that you can be here, where you’re needed, right now. KEEP MOVING. Do something today that will bring you joy even if you know you will not do it well.”― Maggie Smith, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change

We don’t make our life out of perfect circumstances, conditions, relationships.
Stop waiting to move for the timing of “someday when.”
That place is fictional and delays us from doing the daily work, reflection and rest.
Start wherever you are today.
The uneven ground you stand on now.
Move out from there – consistency, stumble, practice, mistakes, repetition, breakthrough, growth, repeat. Better than the day before.
Don’t allow a bad moment or hour to take a foothold.
Footholds become strongholds.
Let it be and let it pass. Like a river flowing.
Few days are end-to-end harmonious.
A shift in perspective can increase the volume.
Gratitude, hope, optimism, enthusiasm are powerful daily practices not platitudes.
Tough, resilient, grit to keep moving imperfectly.
They pull us through everyday frustration, struggle, grief, difficult, loss, dry seasons.
Not to deny them but to acknowledge and not become them.
Our emotions are telling us something more than the obvious.
Anger is fear.
Grief is love.
Keep making your life each ordinary day, weaving joy into the mundane, laughter into the chaos, gratitude amidst loss and change.
Perpetual becoming, transformation is hard work.
Get to it.

“Don’t wait for your life to magically come together–it’s your work to do. Every day, every moment, you are making your life from scratch. Today, take one step, however small, toward creating a life you can be proud of.”― Maggie Smith, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change

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