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Posts tagged ‘light’

Aug 22

Bridges, Hands, Light

“Here’s to the bridge-builders, the hand-holders, the light-bringers, those extraordinary souls wrapped in ordinary lives who quietly weave threads of humanity into an inhumane world. They are the unsung heroes in a world at war with itself. They are the whisperers of hope that peace is possible. Look for them in this present darkness. Light your candle with their flame. And then go. Build bridges. Hold hands. Bring light to a dark and desperate world. Be the hero you are looking for. Peace is possible. It begins with us.”― L.R. Knost

“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.”― L.R. Knost

Arm-chair quarterbacks.
Backseat drivers.
Critics and cynics.
The loudest voices.
The non-doers.
The easy path.
Do the hard work.
Contribute, create, add, multiply.
Bridge building.
Hand holding
Light bringing.
Peace is possible.
Always starts within.
The world awaits your generosity, kindness and light.
Heed the higher call.

“Leave a trail of light behind you
Everywhere you go.
Whose darkness you’ll illuminate
You may never know.”― L.R. Knost

Jun 25

Widening Pool

“Hope is the hardest love we carry.”― Jane Hirshfield, The Lives of the Heart

“What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.”― Elizabeth Alexander

Do not believe the cynics.
Do not join them.
They have plenty on their team.
Be courageous in hope, love, joy.
Eternal optimist despite the “facts.”
So much more below the surface of first impressions.
In proximity and connection.
Be a light bearer.
Do, create, build.
A new canvas with each wave of love.
Walking forward in that light.

“Art replaces the light that is lost when the day fades, the moment passes, the evanescent extraordinary makes its quicksilver. Art tries to capture that which we know leaves us, as we move in and out of each other’s lives, as we all must eventually leave this earth. Great artists know that shadow, work always against the dying light, but always knowing that the day brings new light and that the ocean which washes away all traces on the sand leaves us a new canvas with each wave.”― Elizabeth Alexander, The Light of the World

Jun 23

5:40 Arrival

“Art can be defined as beauty able to transcend the circumstances of its making.”― Jane Hirshfield, The Heart of Haiku

“Monday comes too soon… Don’t forget to squeeze several moments of joy into this weekend. Throw in some little pockets of peace and then be sure to sprinkle some good old belly-laughter to get the life-giving mix going. Let go of the safety bars for a moment or two, and throw those hands up in the air. This is life. This is it. Give yourself over, to whatever brings you that light, this world so desperately needs. Monday comes too soon.” – Donna Ashworth, Wild Hope

The sun always remains.
Whether hidden between clouds, rain.
Or in resting, letting the moon take its turn.
At peak, arriving slowing, full view, early morning.
Brilliant, bold, transcendent beauty.
A washing of light.
Give yourself over.
The gift of Sunday, that can spill over into Monday too.
Of our own choosing.

“The desire of monks and mystics is not unlike that of artists: to perceive the extraordinary within the ordinary by changing not the world but the eyes that look… To form the intention of new awareness is already to transform and be transformed.”― Jane Hirshfield, Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World

May 21

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Gently Awakening

“Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.”― C.S. Lewis

“i’m glad to be alive
in a world where
his gently awakening eyes
nourish the morning sun.”
― Sanober Khan, Turquoise Silence

Drink in the sun.
Walk in the woods.
Return to silence, again and again.
To hear the still small voice calling you home.
To beauty, joy, spring bursting.
Without and within.

“I drank the silence of God from a spring in the woods.” – Georg Trakl

Dec 17

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The Slow Work

“The whole life lies in the verb seeing.”― Teilhard de Chardin

“Make of yourself a light,”
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal — a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.” – Mary Oliver, House of Light

May inspiration lead to motion.
Love to action.
Seeing as if for the first time.
Slow steady work.
Currents always moving.
Some seasons on the shoreline.
To ready for reentry.
Whether we see it or not, we are changing.
We either resist or succumb to the unfolding within.
Make yourself a light.
Heed the call, the whisper.
Emergence at work.

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.”
― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Nov 17

Megaphone of Love

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”― C.S. Lewis

“Back on the caregiving roller coaster, I struggled to remember the lesson I had just learned so painfully with Mom: the end of caregiving isn’t freedom. The end of caregiving is grief.”― Margaret Renkl, Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss

A friend’s Mom passed away yesterday.
Another friend’s Mom in July.
Mine in March.
Others a few years ago, some decades.
Grief is both individual and communal.
Same and different.
Fresh and lingering.
Deeper than platitudes.
Beyond the words of a Hallmark card.
Not a process but a winding, rocky, sometimes beautiful journey.
A bi-polar SOB.
Depths and heights.
Laughter and tears.
Drops and waves.
Never over, merely changing its form.
Do not go around it, avoid, or run from it.
Right through the middle.
Loss is overwhelming and always overcome by love.
Friends and family, show up.
Not just in the beginning, but months later too.
Simply be there and available.
Don’t assume, always ask and listen.
Actions over words.
Peace, love, light on this journey friend.
Love walks beside you softly, quietly, fiercely.

“Friendship … is born at the moment when one man says to another “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Sep 27

4 Comments

Grow, Grow

“According to the Talmud, every blade of grass has its own angel bending over it, whispering, “Grow, grow.”― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

“We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort. We postpone and postpone until those smiling possibilities are dead… By neglecting the necessary concrete labor, by sparing ourselves the little daily tax, we are positively digging the graves of our higher possibilities.”― William James

Daily efforts.
Strokes on a blank canvas.
Rituals.
Practices.
Chopping wood.
Stacking wood.
Doing the dishes.
Repetition to mastery.
Progress in steps married with time.
Finding beauty along the way.
Precisely where it resides, in ordinary days.
Overflowing, in abundance and not complicated.
Before us awaiting for our senses to ignite and notice.
Change. Learn. Transform.
Plant. Nurture. Bloom.
An angel whispering, grow, grow!

“Everyone wants a revolution. No one wants to do the dishes.”― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

Today marks 1000 posts in a row on Cast Light. A decision I made to post every day, to publish imperfectly, to commit to practice, to the gift of ritual. Thank you to those who take the time to read this, who hopefully find encouragement, commonality, community and some beams of light. May we all continue to grow and cast light.

Sep 6

The Sun Remains

“Let the sun set, let the darkness fall, do not be afraid, as long as the sun does not set in your mind!”― Mehmet Murat ildan

“In a world where everything comes at a price, if you’re choosing to stay kind, if you’re choosing to value your dignity and your integrity, if your choosing to understand and embrace the smile of Solitude, if you’re choosing to employ your faculties to understand the real questions of Life, then you’re alive, much more alive than your human dreams could have made you feel. Because no matter what, when sunset hits the night, and the day comes to a close you know you’ve done your part, you know you have embraced one more day with gratitude and grace, with a formidable zeal for Life and an invincible spirit of human understanding that stands firm pillared with Hope and Faith. And then no matter how many voices shrill your mind, the echo of your soul would pierce through your heart and enlighten every inch of your mind, body and soul, and you would know how proud the Universe must be to see the faithfulness, the strength and resilience in your soul, the very mould that was shaped in the fire of the Stardust that shines upon the sky, sometimes becoming a beacon to others while sometimes lying beautifully hidden but always there, always alive.” ― Debatrayee Banerjee

As summer tumbles into fall slowly but surely.
As seasons change without fail.
The sun remains.
Rising and falling.
Inviting us to find and make meaning in each day.
Beginnings and endings again and again.
The middle, the makings of our life.
Stay kind, gentle, curious, and alive through it all.
A beacon, a light.

“The sun’s descent marks not just the end of another day, but a symbolic passage—a reminder that life, like the sun, moves in cycles, each ending giving birth to a new beginning.”― Ryan Gelpke, Peruvian Day

Jul 6

Levity

“Nothing like a little judicious levity.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

“The body, she says, is subject to the force of gravity. But the soul is ruled by levity, pure.”― Saul Bellow

Weight and levity.
Gravity and flight.
Ground and sky.
Both and all the in between.
Awe and wonder.
Play and laughter.
Lighten up.
Ignite your imagination.
Illuminate this day.
Let joy in.

“Joy is prayer; joy is strength: joy is love; joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.” – Mother Teresa

Jun 14

Dragonfly

“Magic is seeing wonder in nature’s every little thing, seeing how wonderful the fireflies are and how magical are the dragonflies.”― Ama H.Vanniarachchy

“Dragonflies hover on an abundance of air.”― Anthony T. Hincks

Dragonflies dancing.
Pausing to rest.
Summer sun and soft breeze.
A poem.
A song.
A declaration of light.
Abundance singing out loud in summer.
Reflect the light.
Bring the ease of summer wherever you pass through.
The dance of the dragonfly.
Magic and awe.
Good things.

“Dragonflies are reminders that we are light and we can reflect light in powerful ways if we choose to do so.”― Robyn Nola

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