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Posts tagged ‘Golden Retriever’

Mar 22

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Sweet Smell of Dirt

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” – Margaret Atwood

“As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness — just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.”― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder: On Wisdom and Virtues

Winter to spring dance
Dirt softening to growth
Get out and put on some spring
A walk in the woods
Wrestle in the back yard
Mud on the forehead
Dirt embedded in your feet
Grounding in ordinary days
With extraordinary gratitude
To be right where you are
Delighting in this day
The unfolding of a thousand springs.

“For a day, just for one day,
Talk about that which disturbs no one
And bring some peace into your
Beautiful eyes.”
– Shams-al-Din Mohammad Hafez, The Subject Tonight Is Love: 60 Wild and Sweet Poems Inspired by Hafiz

“Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm.” – John Muir

Mar 19

Daily Work of Delighting

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” – Rumi

“We have to fight them daily, lake fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.”― Etty Hillesum

Care without carrying it all
Pause to root, reset, redirect
Laughter to lighten the load
Wander to enter awe and wonder again and again
Nature to awaken the senses
Reverence to till gratitude
Kindness to soften the heart
A coat of joy to wear on the journey
May you find delight today
And let it in

“A desire to kneel down sometimes pulses through my body, or rather it is as if my body has been meant and made for the act of kneeling. Sometimes, in moments of deep gratitude, kneeling down becomes an overwhelming urge, head deeply bowed, hands before my face.”― Etty Hillesum

“Despite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.”― Etty Hillesum, Lettres de westerbork

Mar 3

Off Path to Wonder

“The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter” – Mark Twain

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.”― Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

Less doing, busy, transactions
More making, building, creating
Color, oxygen, joy, light, music, art, nature, fun
To root, renew, restore
A sense of wonder and awe
Ease  and delight found in wandering off path, discovery
Gratitude in praise
For another day
And the sense and openness to breathe it all in
Walk lightly, with anticipation and delight.

“Forgiveness is a refusal to armor your own heart—a refusal to live in a constricted heart,” he said, seemingly as much to himself as to me. “Living with that openness means feeling pain. It’s not pretty, but the alternative is feeling nothing at all.”― Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

Feb 27

Ordinary, Fresh Wonder

“We’re invited to pay attention to the enchanted world around us in a new way, to be open to the possibility of an encounter with God at every moment.”― Mike Cosper, Recapturing the Wonder

“Sometimes we get so hung up on doing something great, we forget the best thing is often the smallest.”― Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places

Open the windows
Hair in the wind
Clear the clutter
Create space
Slow, yield, pause
For joy, wonder, enchantment, awe
In small, ordinary, daily moments
Rhythms, signposts, practices
Spring woven in winter
Open the windows
Ordinary, fresh wonder

“To experience the richness of life in God’s kingdom, we must reorder our lives. We need to see through the shallow promises of our culture, and we need rhythms, signposts, and practices that reorient us to another world.”― Mike Cosper, Recapturing the Wonder

Feb 16

Joy Hunt

“It’s a rare gift, to know where you need to be, before you’ve been to all the places you don’t need to be.”― Ursula K. Le Guin, Tales from Earthsea

“To everyone out there
trying to keep going,
Don’t look too far ahead,
this day is all you need to
partake in, right now.
Take it one step at a time,
remembering to find the sunlight
and the beauty in each moment.
Cast out the darkness and
celebrate the light that is
always present when you
open your eyes and your heart.
Cherish this day as a gift
not given to everyone.” – C.E. Coombes

To remain in this day
Partake, receive, steep
To be here
Fully present in now
On the hunt for joy, ease, delight on the path
Gratitude, grief, grace
Woven together in the tapestry of this day

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

Dec 18

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Delight in the Ordinary

“…small bits of our day are profoundly meaningful
because they are the site of our worship. The crucible of our formation is in the monotony of our daily routines.”― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

“We are standing before the Grand Canyon or the Sistine Chapel and rolling our eyes.”― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

Hum of the ordinary.
Invitation to play.
Nuance of color.
Current of rivers.
Flow of wind.
Dance of trees.
Rhythm of life.
Hidden in plain sight.
Asking our partaking, savoring, pausing.
Small moment, big life.

“The new life into which we are baptized is lived out in days, hours, and minutes. God is forming us into a new people. And the place of that formation is in the small moments of today.”― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

Oct 28

Simple Moments

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” – Wayne Dyer

“Give yourself a gift of five minutes of contemplation in awe of everything you see around you. Go outside and turn your attention to the many miracles around you. This five-minute-a-day regimen of appreciation and gratitude will help you to focus your life in awe.” – Wayne Dyer

Simple moments.
Slivers of joy.
Found hidden on the ground you stand.
Overflowing with delight.
These are what add up, accumulate, multiply.
Do not miss the simple moments, the ingredients of a good life well lived.
Small and immense all at once.
Daily gratitude revealing the abundant present.

“Our present moment is a mystery that we are part of. Here and now is where all the wonder of life lies hidden. And make no mistake about it, to strive to live completely in the present is to strive for what already is the case.” – Wayne Dye

Sep 30

Delicious Delighting

“The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.” – Julia Margaret Cameron

“The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.” – Isaac Asimov

To delight in this day.
To not “remember when” or “someday when” to diminish the present.
In the mystery, unknowing, ordinary.
Awake, open and inviting.
New day, fresh hope, on the lookout for joy with a heap of fun.
To delight in this very day.

“If you are paying attention, then the day is going to be pretty joyful, and a lot of delight will fill it.” – Greg Boyle

Sep 25

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A Fund of Delight

“Nature was here a series of wonders, and a fund of delight.” – Daniel Boone

“Simple being is a deep sigh of relief that comes from letting go of pretense. It is also the sigh that comes from releasing a heavy burden that results from creating and managing the false selves that are substitute centers for the truth of our being. It is the sigh of release as we exchange complexity for simplicity. It is the sigh of release as we let go of preoccupations, inordinate attachments, and disordered passions. Things in the depths of our beings get aligned when we let go of these things.”― David G. Benner, Presence and Encounter

Break away from doing.
Simple being.
Deep sigh.
Travel light.
Release and put down.
Found in the seeking.
In the finding.
Joy chasing.
Wonder overflowing.
Rhythms of grace.
A fund of delight.

“Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.”― John Mark Comer, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

“The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.” – Isaac Asimov

Sep 3

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Bliss of the Moment

“That’s what it means to really feel alive – to be so immersed in the passionate bliss of the moment that you don’t think about yesterday or tomorrow. You just enjoy what you’re doing and love every piece of it.”― Lori Deschene

“Practice the pause. Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you’re about to react harshly and you’ll avoid doing and saying things you’ll later regret.”― Lori Deschene

Intention to action.
Attention to awareness.
Reaction to response.
Awe to gratitude.
The power of the pause, of noticing.
Immersed in today alone.
Bliss woven into simple moments.
Flow and ease.
Get out of your own way.

“The moment we decide things don’t have to be a certain way, we create the possibility that they could be better than we know to imagine them.”― Lori Deschene

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