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Posts tagged ‘Gratitude’

Sep 20

The World in Pause

“Try to be like the turtle – at ease in your own shell.” – Bill Copeland

“Take a walk with a turtle. And behold the world in pause.” – Bruce Feiler

Pause to see progress.
To mark mileage.
Not in miles but in inches and feet.
In depth and expanse.
The unfolding, the opening, the becoming.
The slow path of transformation.
Seeing the same with fresh eyes.
Attuned to what is and possibilities of what is to come.
Root and reach.
Pause and praise.

“Life is a work in progress.” – Jeff Rich

Sep 19

Yield to the Beauty of Friendship

“One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.” – Khalil Gibran

Three hours on the St. Croix River.
On a Monday even.
Leaves on the cusp of changing color.
Paddling slowly.
Pausing to watch the eagles above and elusive turtles on log tips slipping into water.
Slow conversation.
Topics all over the place.
Struggles, successes, daily life, dreams, delight, joy.
The stuff of true friendship.
Timeless and no rules.
Easy like the river flowing.
Yield to the beauty of friendship.
Gratitude is a deep river.

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” – Marcel Proust

Sep 14

Top Heavy

“Cherish sunsets, wild creatures and wild places. Have a love affair with the wonder and beauty of the earth.” – Stewart Udall

“Tell me a story of deep delight.”― Robert Penn Warren

Allow joy and delight to lift you up.
Top heavy with ease.
Awed by beauty.
Present and open to possibilities.
In giving.
In receiving.
Some days glide.
Some days bumpy.
Each day, the only place to be.
In both being and doing, more being.
Fertile, sacred, holy ground of becoming.
In ordinary days.
The crucible of our formation, fruition, transformation.

“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

Sep 9

Student of Joy

“One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.”― Helen Keller, The Story of My Life

“The root of joy is gratefulness…It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”― Brother David Steindl-Rast

Get out into the world.
Look up and around.
Reach, dig, hunt for joy.
Make it a practice, intention, habit, action.
Every day.
Invite and welcome it in.
Expand your mind and thoughts as big as the sky.
Right where you stand now.
Not backwards.
Not forwards.
In stillness, rooted in gratitude, laughter, connection, in now.
Joy is a practice, a discipline, an effort at times, easy at times.
Become a student of joy.
A master of delight.

“There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.”― John Calvin

Sep 8

Marvel

“Be gentle with your words, your heart is listening.”― Carol ‘CC’ Miller

“Rather than wandering around in problem-solving mode all day, thinking mainly of what you want to fix about yourself or your life, you can pause for a few moments throughout the day to marvel at what’s not broken.”― Kristin Neff, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself

A soft breeze.
Flowers in fresh bloom.
The laughter of a child.
Music turned up to prompt a move or two.
The romp and delight of dogs.
The wide-open spaces in your heart.
Awe abound.
Pause. Notice. Partake.
The marvel of simple joys woven through each day.
Falling into gratitude.
Engage with the world around you.
Speak kindness, compassion, love.
Your heart is listening.

“Being human is not about being any one particular way; it is about being as life creates you—with your own particular strengths and weaknesses, gifts and challenges, quirks and oddities.”― Kristin Neff, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself

Aug 30

Bewilderment and Delight

“You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?”― Rumi

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”― Rumi, Masnavi i Man’avi, the spiritual couplets of Maula

Stray off the path.
Wander a bit.
Take flight, no destination but the journey.
Awake, entering the present.
The view, take it in.
More than enough.
Bewilderment, delight, awe.
Found in being lost in the moment.

“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.”― John Muir

Aug 27

Luminescence

“Beauty surrounds us.”― Rumi

“All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception. Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void. The imagination is continually at work filling up all the fissures through which grace might pass.”― Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace

Luminescence leaps from the hearts of flowers.
Interrupting, stopping us in our tracks.
If we allow.
Grace, not of our making.
Offered to all, if we choose to tune into it.
May beauty find you today.
And wake you up to the present moment.
With an intensity, a light and an embrace.
Assurance of both gravity and grace at work in our days.
Grounded and flying.
Held and set free.

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”― Confucious

Aug 24

Blown Away by Beauty

“I think joy and sweetness and affection are a spiritual path. We’re here to know God, to love and serve God, and to be blown away by the beauty and miracle of nature. You just have to get rid of so much baggage to be light enough to dance, to sing, to play. You don’t have time to carry grudges; you don’t have time to cling to the need to be right.”― Anne Lamott

“Expectations are resentments under construction.”― Anne Lamott

Enter today with fresh thoughts, renewed hopes, bursting energy.
Without explanation, permission or approval.
Flip the story, change the narrative.
Put down the old and put on the new.
A shift in perspective.
An opening to allow possibility to root and bloom.
No shoulds, have tos, why nots, whens – the ingredients of limiting expectations.
Full presence in now, in today.
A path of joy, sweetness and affection.

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”― Anne Lamott

Aug 19

Days End

“Wisdom begins in wonder.” – Socrates

“The only place to begin is where I am, and whether by desire or disaster, I am here. My being here is not dependent on my recognition of the fact. I am here anyway. But it might help if I could learn to look around.”― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

Days end.
Days beginning.
End caps.
Markers.
May the in between be filled with wonder, awe and delight.
Still points throughout.
To be here and now, fully.

“To name a place requires us to be in a place. It requires us to resist dreaming of where we should be and look around where we are.”― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

Aug 16

Slow and Easy

“Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going to fast – you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.” – Eddie Cantor

“It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when they have lost their way.”― Rollo May

Slow down.
Let your imagination saunter and wander.
Allow quiet spaces to hear your own voice.
Anchor in today.
See beauty and light.
There’s fun to be had.
Play to partake in.
Slow and easy.

“What if imagination and art are not frosting at all, but the fountainhead of human experience?”― Rollo May

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