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Posts tagged ‘Mindfulness’

Sep 21

Like a River

“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.”― Rainer Maria Rilke

“We steer the boat, we don’t alter the river.”― J. Earp

Off the shoreline.
Into the river.
Enter the flow, carried by the current, dance with beauty.
Steer your boat, not the river.
Be authentic, no need for explanation or permission.
Allow others the same grace.
Flow like the river.
Off the sidelines, into the game.
A big beautiful world awaits your participation, contribution, and delight.

“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.”― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

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 16

Life Unfolding

“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” – Vincent Van Gogh

“Spoiler alert: The good life is a complicated life. For everybody. The good life is joyful… and challenging. Full of love, but also pain. And it never strictly happens; instead, the good life unfolds, through time. It is a process. It includes turmoil, calm, lightness, burdens, struggles, achievements,”― Robert Waldinger, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness

May joy be yours today.
In drops, in waves, in calm waters.
Hope, grace, peace come in ordinary ways.
Seek them.
Let them find you.
Give them away with abandon.
Life unfolding a day at a time.

“We live in all we seek.”― Annie Dillard, For the Time Being

Sep 15

One More Time

“The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”― Robert Frost

“When Medieval Monks were asked how they practiced their faith, they said, “By falling down and getting up.” This is the human journey from which no one is exempt. We are constantly challenged to get up one more time than we fall, to open one more time than we close, and to put things together one more time than we take them apart.”— Mark Nepo, Falling Down and Getting Up: Discovering Your Inner Resilience and Strength

Transitions of seasons.
External and internal.
Thresholds and openings.
Starts and stops.
Betweenness.
Trips and stumbles.
Overcoming and ease.
Emergence.
Trust the journey that flowers and butterflies know by heart.
Seed in the dark. Bloom in the light.
Weight of the cocoon. Lift of flight.
Time. Waiting. Anticipation.
Getting up again and again.
Seeing beauty along the way.

“In a modern age that commodifies everything, our challenge is to grow from the inside out, letting every holy calling find its own expression within us and between us. After decades of listening to the stories and struggles of others, I can bear witness that teaching, in its most profound form, is not moving a life from here to there, or from effort to achievement, or even from chaos to order. Rather, teaching is creating the enduring environment in which the seed of the soul can know itself and blossom.” — Mark Nepo, Falling Down and Getting Up: Discovering Your Inner Resilience and Strength

Sep 11

Last for Now

“The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

“The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

The water is colder within a week.
Leaves are starting to change.
Chrysalis time.
Cool mornings. Warm days with an edge. Cool evenings.
Last swim for the girls.
Topping off a summer filled with swims, play, delight.
Last for now.
Fresh delight to partake in.
Seasons meld from one to the next.
Returning again and again.
Same and different.
We change from one season to the next.
Sometimes we choose, sometimes we are forced.
Growth and transformation if we allow and receive.
Remain in the present season, knowing the next will surely come.
In due time without fail.
Last for now, making way for next and new.

“One of the more delicate gifts of soul that can come from the chrysalis is a refined attunement to the here-and-now. We learn how to be genuinely present to life.”— Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions

Sep 10

The Currency of Grace

“The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.”― Rabindranath Tagore

“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

Passing moments unnoticed.
Daily tasks repeated.
Nuance.
Hue.
Hint.
Layers.
Flavor.
Delicate.
Wisp.
Ordinary days.
Unseen and bypassed for other and next.
Put the map down.
Pin where you are and enter the space of today.
This is the place of your life before you in plain and beautiful sight.
Calling softly to enter, dance, delight in.

“Ordinary love, anonymous and unnoticed as it is, is the substance of peace on earth, the currency of God’s grace in our daily life.”― 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 4

Placidly

“Happiness held is the seed; Happiness shared is the flower.” – John Harrigan

“Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love – for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you from misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.”― Max Ehrmann, Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life

May your mind be able to be changed.
Your heart opened wider.
Your spirit ascend again and again.
And hope and joy be the song you sing each day.
Anticipation, delight and ease be yours this day.

“To be devoid of life is to lack spiritual dimension that brings heaven to earth”― Sunday Adelaja

Sep 3

Broad Places

“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”― Henri Matisse

“Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me in a broad place.” – Psalm 118:5

In the struggles, the holes, the waiting, there is a broad place.
Where simple beauty, deep joy and hope resides.
Beneath the surface of fleeting feelings, flat assumptions and empty opinions.
Awaiting our arrival.
Inviting rest, ease, quiet.
See both flowers and weeds today.
Gaze longer at the flowers.
The current is moving.
The seeds are breaking open.
Life unfolding in each moment.
Blooming in the broad places and thin spaces of now.

“One day you will look back and see that all along, you were blooming.” – Morgan Harper Nichols

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

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