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Posts tagged ‘Mindfulness’

Aug 20

Art of Harvesting the Day

“We seldom notice how each day is a holy place Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens, Transforming our broken fragments Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“Perhaps the art of harvesting the secret riches of our lives is best achieved when we place profound trust in the act of beginning. Risk might be our greatest ally. To live a truly creative life, we always need to cast a critical look at where we presently are, attempting always to discern where we have become stagnant and where new beginning might be ripening. There can be no growth if we do not remain open and vulnerable to what is new and different. I have never seen anyone take a risk for growth that was not rewarded a thousand times over.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Blessings abundant
Color and light
Beauty woven brilliantly in presence
For eyes to notice
Hands wide open
Heart porous
Art of harvesting it all.

“As clay anchors a tree in light and wind, May your outer life grow from peace within.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Aug 19

Duty of Whimsy

“You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.”― Mary Oliver, Wild Geese

“Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”― Mary Oliver

When, if, then
Falling into…
Now, here, presence

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

Aug 17

The Great Silence, Soft Voice

“Whatever is happening, whatever is changing, whatever is going or not going according to my plans—I release my hold on all of it. I leave behind who I think I am, who I want to be, what I want the world to be. I come home to the great peace of the present moment,”― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

“May you listen to the voice within the beat even when you are tired. When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead. May every experience in life be a door that opens your heart, expands your understanding, and leads you to freedom. If you are weary, may you be aroused by passion and purpose. If you are blameful and bitter, may you be sweetened by hope and humor. If you are frightened, may you be emboldened by a big consciousness far wiser than your fear. If you are lonely, may you find love, may you find friendship. If you are lost, may you understand that we are all lost, and still we are guided—by Strange Angels and Sleeping Giants, by our better and kinder natures, by the vibrant voice within the beat. May you follow that voice, for This is the way—the hero’s journey, the life worth living, the reason we are here.  ”― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

Senses awakening
Slow over urgency
Soft over hard
Reflection over judgment
Yield over assumption
Praise over complaint
Pause over pass by
Sauntering over speed
Presence over past
Thriving over striving
Peace, praise, delight
Receive and cast light.

“Everything gets sorted out in the Great Silence.”― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

Aug 16

Walking and Waking Up

“Some beautiful paths can’t be discovered without getting lost.”― Erol Ozan

“Walking . . . is how the body measures itself against the earth.”― Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

Walking and wandering
The path, the destination
Beauty the gift
Lost to be found.

“The magic of the street is the mingling of the errand and the epiphany.”― Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

Aug 14

Abiding Attention

“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself”― Henry Miller

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”― Henry Miller

Today, wide and deep
New things to see
New thoughts to think
New paths to cut
In the wandering, wonder appears.

“Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves.”― Henry Miller

Aug 10

Fully Received

“Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair…”― susan polis schutz

“Bless you who are discovering that
summer was never something to
conquer, but something to notice –
the peaches, the porch light, the
smell of rain before dinner.

May you leave a few things undone
on purpose, trusting that not every
empty hour is asking to be filled.

Bless you who return to the same
small practices until they become
their own kind of gratitude.

May you remember that a good life
is rarely made of extraordinary days,
but ordinary ones that were fully
received.” – Kate Bowler

In the noticing, delight
In the undoing, creation
In the in-betweens, joy
In the ordinary days, communion.
Fully received.

“Water is fluid, soft & yielding but water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield … what is soft is strong.”― Lao-tzu

Aug 9

Magic and Wonder

“The magic of story. The wonder of words. The fertility of imagination.”― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“Sabbath is the time set aside to do nothing so that we can receive everything, to set aside our anxious attempts to make ourselves useful, to set aside our tense restlessness, to set aside our media-satiated boredom. Sabbath is the time to receive silence and let it deepen into gratitude, to receive quiet into which forgotten faces and voices unobtrusively make themselves present, to receive the days of the just completed week and absorb the wonder and miracle still reverberating from each one, to receive our Lord’s amazing grace.”― Eugene H. Peterson, Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers

Anticipation, hope, enthusiasm
Thoughts, words, actions
Forgiveness, releasing, open heart
Reflection, rest, restoration
Letting the past be done
Allowing the future to unfold
Fertile ground of this day
Planting seeds of attention, gratitude, encouragement, presense, praise.
Amazing amazing grace.
Joy chosen and given in real time.

“We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.”― Kahlil Gibran

Aug 5

Today Such a Day

“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.”― Rumi

“Only from the heart can you touch the sky.”― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

Curiosity, inquiry, observation.
Reverence, reverie, reflection.
Open hands, heart, eyes.
Breeze, sky, beauty.
Notice and partake.

“On a day
when the wind is perfect,
the sail just needs to open and the world is full of beauty.
Today is such a day.”― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

Jul 30

Brimming and Blooming

“The poetry of the earth is never dead.”― John Keats

“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes—The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Alive and brimming
Blooming and breathing
Afire and abundance
Not in the hurrying or hankering
But in full presence, steeping, reverence
Poetry, prose, song, dance, delight, beauty
Woven in this day
To seek, find, offer, receive
Crammed with heaven
Take off your shoes.

“Life is not hurrying on to a receding future, nor hankering after an imagined past. It is the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush, to a brightness that seemed as transitory as your youth once, but is the eternity that awaits you.” – R.S. Thomas

Jul 28

Best Portion, Daily Tending

“the best portion of a good person’s life is ‘the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.”― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”― Robert Louis Stevenson, Familiar Studies of Men and Books

Participate in this day
Tending, steeping, rooting
See the brilliance, abundance, delight
Woven in moments
Through simple acts
Attention
Kindness
Laughter
Noticing and embracing
What is already here
Tender and gentle
In the unfolding and becoming
Bloom under construction
Seed, bud, burst
One petal at a time.

“simply help people sit still long enough to see what is already there.”― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

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