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Posts tagged ‘Gratitude’

Nov 4

Cultivate, Bear Good Fruit

“Solitude is the soil in which genius is planted, creativity grows, and legends bloom; faith in oneself is the rain that cultivates a hero to endure the storm, and bare the genesis of a new world, a new forest.”― Mike Norton, White Mountain

“Cultivating the power of presence comes from creating the space to observe one’s mind and one’s self.”― Dee Waldeck

Till soil
Cast seeds
Water roots
Look up to the sun
Tend to self and others
Cultivate joy, kindness, love
Garden well
Bear good fruit.

“We must cultivate our garden.”― Voltaire

Nov 3

2 Comments

To See Today’s Beauty

“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.”― T.S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.”― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

For eyes to see the beautiful thing
Ears to hear the symphony
Words for today
Stamina and resilience to stay and participate
Gratitude to root and anchor
Grace of presence
Light to cast
Love to offer
Devotion to what matters
Joy on the journey
A life’s work.

“Be committed to creating a life’s work, not a season. If you get overexcited and rush everything for fear of missing out, you run the risk of being a flash in the pan and fading away fast. Have the stamina to stay in the game. To do it for the devotion and pleasure alone.” – Rebecca Campbell, Rise Sister Rise

Oct 30

Uninhibited. Unafraid. Untethered. 

“God is more time than schedules, more grace than boundaries, more everything than the imaginable.”― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native

“What might we learn if we listen, if we wade in—unafraid, untethered, and uninhibited—ready to become the ones we were created to become.”― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native

More space, margins, imagination
Less busy, noise, doing
More and less
Awe and gratitude
Beauty and wonder
Always arriving, becoming, unfolding
Time does not stop, rewind, jump ahead
Today is what lies before each of us
For grace, sense and capacity to be here fully
Uninhibited. Unafraid. Untethered.

“You are a human being. You are always arriving.”― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Living Resistance

Oct 27

Mostly Live

“October, crisp, misty, golden October, when the light is sweet and heavy.”― Angela Carter, The Magic Toyshop

“Under the brush of the autumn wind, the leaves dance, painted in hues of orange and gold, a visual symphony that sings in every corner of the forest.”― David Passarelli, Mountain poems: Musings on stone, forest, and snow

Lingering summer
Late fall
Beauty of each season
Gravity of today
Weight of wonder
Pull of joy
Push of awe
Look around
On the ground of this day
A visual symphony
Mostly live

“There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called Yesterday and the other is called Tomorrow. Today is the right day to Love, Believe, Do and mostly Live.”― Dalai Lama XIV

Oct 25

Create, Bloom, Shine

“My soul drank enough to know how thirsty it was.”― Marie Howe

“Some people create. Some people critique.”― Liz Newman

Be the one that creates…
Builds
Reaches
Encourages
Connects
Asks
Listens
Blooms
Invites
Laughs
Delights
Colors
Dances
Shines
Cast light

“After all, it is in loving that we find our bliss and accomplish the greatest service toward others.”― Joan Borysenko, Pocketful of Miracles

Oct 23

Beauty Ever Blooming

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” – Confucius

“I bless the night that nourished my heart
To set the ghosts of longing free
Into the flow and figure of dream
That went to harvest from the dark
Bread for the hunger no one sees.

All that is eternal in me
Welcomes the wonder of this day,
The field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To arise and illuminate.

I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Waves of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.

May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more”
–  John O’Donohue

To find good in this day
To let good find you
Invitation
Conversation
Communion
See beauty, witness and partake
Let it soak in
To be made new
By wonder, awe, delight.

“The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination.”― Carl R. Rogers

Oct 22

Easily Overlooked, Look Again

“We ‘re all yearning for a wedge of sky, aren ‘t we? I suspect God plants these yearnings in us so we’ll at least try and change the course of things. We must try, that’s all” ― Sue Monk Kidd, The Invention of Wings

“The most significant gifts are the ones most easily overlooked. Small, everyday blessings: woods, health, music, laughter, memories, books, family, friends, second chances, warm fireplaces, and all the footprints scattered throughout our days.”― Sue Monk Kidd

In the details
Ordinary days
Delays, detours and distractions
Take a breath, a pause, hard stop
Look up, look in, notice with new eyes
What’s right before and in reach
Small everyday blessings
Awe, wonder, delight
Persist in love, joy, gratitude
Look again.

“And when you get down to it, Lily, that is the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love but to persist in love.”― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

Oct 19

Transformation Work of Grace

“Could it be that we are so worn and desperate for ways to better ourselves because we’ve missed the power, inherent in the grace of God, that eradicates self-improvement altogether? Is it possible that we keep trying to answer the wrong question— “Am I enough?” —when we’re really wanting to know: “Is God Enough?”
― Ruth Chou Simons, When Strivings Cease: Replacing the Gospel of Self-Improvement with the Gospel of Life-Transforming Grace

“It’s a grace that enables the hope that sustains us in times of uncertainty, pain, and when our lives don’t look the way we hoped or expected. God’s grace isn’t an afterthought for a believer walking through unexpected circumstances; it’s the anchor.”― Ruth Chou Simons, When Strivings Cease: Replacing the Gospel of Self-Improvement with the Gospel of Life-Transforming Grace

Anchor of grace
Given freely
Tethered by hope
Imagination widening the view
More than enough, overflowing
Presence and trust, without explanation
Even here, wherever here is for you
Keep walking, story unfolding, transformation at work
Peace, love, joy

“I walked through times and seasons that felt like exile, God was always writing a story in my life that was more than I could imagine.”― Ruth Chou Simons, When Strivings Cease: Replacing the Gospel of Self-Improvement with the Gospel of Life-Transforming Grace

Oct 16

Two Lives

“This sky
Where we live
Is no place to lose your wings
So love, love
Love.”― Hafez, The Gift

“My time is too short:
I want the essence,
my soul is in a hurry.
I don’t have many sweets
in the package anymore.
I want to live next to human people,
very human,
who know how to laugh at their mistakes,
and who are not inflated by their triumphs,
and who take on their responsibilities.
Thus, human dignity is defended, and we move towards truth and honesty.
It is the essential that makes life worth living.
I want to surround myself with people who know how to touch hearts, people who have been taught by the hard blows of life to grow with gentle touches of the soul.
Yes, I’m in a hurry, I’m in a hurry to live with the intensity that only maturity can give.
I don’t intend to waste any of the leftover sweets.
I am sure they will be delicious, much more than what I have eaten so far.
My goal is to reach the end satisfied
and at peace with my loved ones
and my conscience.
We have two lives.
And the second begins when you realize you only have one.” – Mário Raul de Morais Andrade

Urgency to slow, deepen
Attention to find beauty and joy woven in this very day
Seen with fresh eyes, open heart
Reverence for presence
Love, grace, gratitude
Awe, wonder, delight
Kindness, light, love
Rooted and in flight.

“The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.”― Søren Kierkegaard

Oct 12

Rhythm, Light, Grace

“You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ll take it. ”― Mary Oliver

“If you allow yourself to be the person that you are, then everything will come into rhythm.
If you live the life you love, you will receive shelter and blessings.
Sometimes the great famine of blessing in and around us derives from the fact that we are not living the life we love, rather we are living the life that is expected of us.
We have fallen out of rhythm with the secret signature and light of our own nature.”
– John O’Donohue, Anam Cara

May you hear your own voice
Allow others too
Conversation, exchange, dance
Inquiry, quieting, listening
Allowing, inviting, welcoming
To not know everything
Creating space for unlearning, relearning, growth
Standing on this ground, blessed and blessing
Grace, light, homecoming.

“Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.”
― Mary Oliver, Evidence: Poems

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