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Posts tagged ‘Mindfulness’

Nov 10

Spacious Unfolding

“All those who love Nature she loves in return, and will richly reward, not perhaps with the good things, as they are commonly called, but with the best things of this world-not with money and titles, horses and carriages, but with bright and happy thoughts, contentment and peace of mind.”― John Lubbock

“Make your choice, adventurous Stranger,
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew

Friction and resistance
Release and flow
Rush and persistence
Calm and slow
The dance
Seasons shifting
Rhythm and grace
Inquiry and curiosity
Wonder and awe
Spacious unfolding.

“You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.”― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Nov 8

Golden Clasp

“Sunday is the golden clasp that binds together the volume of the week.”― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“I don’t want a religion that I put away with my Sunday clothes, and don’t take out till the day comes around again; I want something to see and feel and live day by day.”― Louisa May Alcott, An Old-Fashioned Girl

To set aside, put down
Rest, reflect, renew
Pause and praise
Sacred ground
Sunday peace
Weave it through the week

“Sunday, the day for the language of leisure.”― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

Nov 7

Garden Work

“When we walk on the earth with reverence, beauty will decide to trust us. Beauty is mysterious, a slow presence who waits for the ready, expectant heart.” – John O’Donohue

“I’m tending to my garden, I’m making it my place,
Where I can spend my moments, in this nurturing space.
I too, am like a flower, needing sunshine and rain,
With gentle hands that guide me, I can flourish once again.

With every season changing, the blooms may come and go,
Yet in the quiet shadows, there’s beauty still to show.
For in the depths of winter, when all seems cold and bare,
New dreams begin their stirring, bringing hope beyond despair.

So as I sow my blessings, and patiently I wait,
I learn to trust the timing, and embrace my natural fate.
For reaching towards the sunlight, I find my truest spark,
In this garden of my making, I can leave my mark” – C.E. Coombes

Expectancy
Anticipation
Enthusiasm
Delight
Enchantment
Hope
Joy
Laughter
Light
Kindness
Generosity
Abundance
Reverence
Wonder

In the nurturing, tending to your garden
These are the fruits of labor, garden work
Tend, nurture, plant
Standing on sacred ground.

“When we devote some calm time to the heart and come off the treadmill of stress and distraction we can enter into the beauty within.  Each of us can prepare for that inner arrival: where ‘night holds sway’ and the inner forest becomes ‘free of strangers’.” – John O’Donohue

Nov 6

Off We Go, On to This Day

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”― Theodore Roosevelt

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”

In the daily ordinary
In showing up
In listening
In kindness, laughter, play
In ups and downs
In plenty and scarcity
In the middle, mix, mess
Potholes, detours, delays
Celebrations, milestones, progress
Create, recreate, unlearn, learn
Ease up, slow down, look around
Lighten up
Be present where you are
May you offer and find joy, delight, hope
Wherever the path leads today.

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”― George Bernard Shaw

Nov 4

Color of Thoughts

“The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.”― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love …”― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

On today’s path
May colors blaze
Fresh air crisp, deep breath
Light stream through thoughts, words, deeds
Encouragement, kindness, grace
Love well.

“What we do now echoes in eternity.”― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Nov 2

Open Road, Wandering Trails

“The work of minding your mind is a skill most people aren’t taught. It takes awareness and attunement. It takes spaciousness and curiosity. It takes tenacity and intentionality. It takes prayer and rationality. But as you get good at it, the process of minding your own mind—of noticing and reflecting on your inner dialogue, thoughts, and emotions—becomes one of the most rewarding parts of being an image-of-God-bearing human.”― Alison Cook

Song of the Open Road, 1 by Walt Whitman

“Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.

The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)”

Open road
Wandering trails
Abundant light
Color ablaze
Go off path today
Luggage of worries, burdens put down for a bit
Minding and mining your mind
A few minutes off and away
Deep breath
Fresh eyes
Cup of hope
Bucket of joy
Permission to laugh, sing, dance
To be made new, filled up, restored
Afoot and light-hearted
Re-enchantment under construction.

“The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world.”― Max Weber

Oct 30

Rooted and Reaching

“To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.”― Alister McGrath, Mere Apologetics: How to Help Seekers and Skeptics Find Faith

“Silent listening is a particular way of being active, not passive, in the world.” – Thomas Moore

Re-enchantment and delight.
Wide and deep.
Wonder, wander, awe
Engagement and immersion.
Root and reach.

“The human quest for beauty is thus really a quest for the source of that beauty, which is mediated through the things of this world, not contained within them.”― Alister McGrath, Mere Apologetics: How to Help Seekers and Skeptics Find Faith

Oct 28

Autumn Waving

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

Grace by Wendell Berry

“The woods is shining this morning.
Red, gold and green, the leaves
lie on the ground, or fall,
or hang full of light in the air still.
Perfect in its rise and in its fall, it takes
the place it has been coming to forever.
It has not hastened here, or lagged.
See how surely it has sought itself,
its roots passing lordly through the earth.
See how without confusion it is
all that it is, and how flawless
its grace is. Running or walking, the way
is the same. Be still. Be still.
“He moves your bones, and the way is clear.”

Waves of fall colors linger
Holding out
A spell longer
Time and timing
Thresholds
A foot on each side
Lingering, abiding, tending
The work of this day, each day
Grace and gratitude
Harvesting presence.

“And autumn ain’t so shabby for wow, either. The colors are broccoli and flame and fox fur.” – Anne Lamott

 

Oct 22

Heavenly Oils

“A flower will always grow in the direction of the sun because beauty recognises beauty.”― Matshona Dhliwayo

The Sun by Mary Oliver

“Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?”

to never grow weary
take for granted
bypass without noticing
restoration in awe and wonder
found in a sunset, flower, a poem
billowing, reaching, streaming
joy, peace, love

“The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living.”― Viktor Emil Frankl

Oct 21

Color and Rhythm of Slow Time

“You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.
Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.” – John O’Donohue

“When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.” – John O’Donohue

Restoration in slowing down, pulling over
Reckoning that more speed, doing, busyness are futile, false ground
Breaking open to awakened senses
Where colors dance
Partake in the small miracles woven in each day
Claimed by calm
Be held in joy
Linger in slow time.

“Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.” – John O’Donohue

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