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Posts tagged ‘Gratitude’

Jan 8

Rituals of Approach

“When one flower blooms spring awakens everywhere.”― John O’Donohue

“What you encounter, recognize or discover depends to a large degree on the quality of your approach. Many of the ancient cultures practiced careful rituals of approach. An encounter of depth and spirit was preceded by careful preparation.

When we approach with reverence, great things decide to approach us. Our real life comes to the surface and its light awakens the concealed beauty in things. When we walk on the earth with reverence, beauty will decide to trust us. The rushed heart and arrogant mind lack the gentleness and patience to enter that embrace.”― John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace – A Spiritual Homecoming Through Celtic Traditions, Art, Music, and Divine Grace

Morning, stepping off point
Slow entry
Reflection, meditation, prayer
Call it what you will
Getting out of your own way
Soft whisper
Discernment and clarity
Setting the tone
Framing the door
Crossing the threshold
Anticipation, reverence, curiosity
Spilling into awe, wonder, delight
Spring smack dab in winter
Ordinary days, sacred gifts woven throughout
Concealed beauty surfaces
Blooming joy in noticing, partaking, generosity
Enter the embrace of a new day.

“May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.”― John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

Jan 7

To Lay Hold of It

“What a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold of it!”― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“I had been continually exhorted to define my purpose in life, but I was now beginning to doubt whether life might not be too complex a thing to be kept within the bounds of a single formulated purpose, whether it would not burst its way out, or if the purpose were too strong, perhaps grow distorted like an oak whose trunk has been encircled with an iron band. I began to guess that my self’s need was for an equilibrium, for sun, but not too much, for rain, but not always… So I began to have an idea of my life, not as the slow shaping of achievement to fit my preconceived purposes, but as the gradual discovery and growth of a purpose which I did not know. I wrote: “It will mean walking in a fog for a bit, but it’s the only way which is not a presumption, forcing the self into a theory.”― Marion Milner, A Life of One’s Own

Presence and wonder
Mystery and curiosity
Inviting and allowing
Riding the waves
Entering the current
Emergence and clarity
Slowing and savoring
Time, interest, engagement
Trusting the journey
Detours and delays
With joy, gratitude, grace
Gradual discovery
To lay hold of loveliness before
Found rooted in presence
In each new day.

“You cannot buy the right atmosphere or a sense of togetherness. You cannot hygge if you are in a hurry or stressed out, and the art of creating intimacy cannot be bought by anything but time, interest and engagement in the people around you.”― Meik Wiking, The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well

Jan 6

Liquid Architecture

“Music is liquid architecture; Architecture is frozen music.”― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise, we harden.”― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Peace, light, color
In the midst of winter
Gratitude, grace, delight
In the midst of struggle
May these be yours on ordinary days
Receptivity, generosity, joy
Stay soft in a hard world
Liquid architecture.

“Remember to live.”― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Jan 3

1 Comment

Gardening

“The many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden.”― Sir Thomas More

“I have learned that
everything has its own language and that
if I listen carefully to the birds and the creatures,
and even the grasses,
I will hear the sound of God
in the music of the silence.” – Catherine Garland, Learning Life poem

The gift of pause, reflection
Music of silence
Of thresholds
Bridges
Blank canvases
Fresh beginnings
New day, new month, new year
Plant seeds
Tend your garden
Ever blooming, becoming, arriving
Cast light, color, gratitude, kindness, joy

“I did not know that I could only get the most out of life by giving myself up to it.”― Marion Milner, A Life of One’s Own

Jan 2

Bask and Steep

“Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom.”― Meik Wiking, The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well

“Comparison is the thief of joy” – Theodore Roosevelt

Something else
Somewhere else
Someone else
Someday when
The grass is greener on the other side of the fence

Look longer
In the eyes of what you have right now
All of it
Imperfect, irritating, incomplete, becoming, unfolding, blooming, beautiful
Not merely at what’s missing, changed, different
Be present and awake

Bask and steep in this day
Find the good, it’s there
Give good away, it compounds
Deep abiding hope, optimism, gratitude
Joy – guard it, receive it, offer it.

“He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”― Socrates

Jan 1

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Beauty of New Beginnings

“Every morning
the world
is created.” – Mary Oliver

Beannacht: A Blessing for the New Year
by John O’Donhue

“On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets in to you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green,
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.”

Presence
Wonder
Awe
Gratitude
Joy
Peace
Light
Love

May these be your daily companions, gifts, blessings
To behold and partake in
The beauty of new beginnings.

“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

Dec 31

New Year’s Path, One Step at a Time

“Let the wild rumpus start!”― Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are

“What the New Year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the New Year.” – Vern McLellan

Intentions spilling into action, inaction too
What to do and what not to do
Daily steps
Consistency
Walking it out
Gentleness
Kindness
Connection
Co-creation
Collaboration
Engaging with forethought
Joy, an act of resistance
Offering peace first
Wandering and rest stops
Deep work
Light play
Unknowing
Learning
Growing
Twists and turns
Acceptance
Generosity
Awe and wonder
Reflection then motion
From divergence to convergence to emergence
Narrowing
Deepening
Laughter, lots of it
Dancing, art, music, nature
Slowing and inviting
Abiding faith, trust, love
Gratitude in, through, with all of it
All of these and more for the new year
Not resolutions as much as ways of living daily

“I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the years’.” – Henry Moore

Dec 29

Fresh Coat, Bright Color

“Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious, and great things.”― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1892-1910

Fresh coat
Bright color
Refresh
Reset
New beginnings
Each moment, day, week, year
Perspectives, approaches, frameworks
Widening the lens when too small
Narrowing the lens when too big
Inquiry, curiosity, exploration, discovery
Beauty, joy, delight woven in ordinary
For eyes to see anew.

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Dec 28

Roam Unfettered

“Let us be certain of who we want to be. Let us choose for ourselves our path in life, and let us try to strew that path with flowers.”― Émilie Du Châtelet

“If just looking could be so satisfying, why was I always striving to have things or to get things done? Certainly I had never suspected that the key to my private reality might lie in so apparently simple a skill as the ability to let the senses roam unfettered by purposes. I began to wonder whether eyes and ears might not have a wisdom of their own.”― Marion Milner, A Life of One’s Own

Enter with anticipation, not defined expectation
Cross with curiosity, not certainty
Traverse with enthusiasm, not guarded steps
Roam unfettered
Let your senses drive
Strew the path with flowers
Enjoy the journey, wherever it leads.

“The secret door to peace is to discard all the busyness.”― Hiral Nagda

Dec 26

Divine Graciousness

“Love is holy because it is like grace–the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.”― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

“This is the homely heart of Incarnation, this meeting of God in man with men and women, this simple face of divine graciousness in ordinary life rather than in the hymns of church fathers or in the dry elaborations of theologians.”― Eugene Kennedy, The Joy of Being Human: Reflections for Every Day of the Year

Don’t rush off
Christmas is not over
It’s just begun
Linger and savor
Slow and absorb
Pause and praise
Sit, stay here
Open the gifts of grace, presence, reflection
A day becomes a season becomes an outlook becomes a way of life
Tides of Christmas
Love rushes in, remains, transforms.

“When we focus on our gratitude, the tide of disappointment goes out and the tide of love rushes in.” – Kirstin Armstrong

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