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Posts tagged ‘Nature’

Oct 9

Altars and Cathedrals, Front and Center

“Whoever you are, you are human. Wherever you are, you live in the world, which is just waiting for you to notice the holiness in it.”― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

“What is saving my life now is the conviction that there is no spiritual treasure to be found apart from the bodily experiences of human life on earth. My life depends on engaging the most ordinary physical activities with the most exquisite attention I can give them. My life depends on ignoring all touted distinctions between the secular and the sacred, the physical and the spiritual, the body and the soul. What is saving my life now is becoming more fully human, trusting that there is no way to God apart from real life in the real world.”― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

Altars and cathedrals
Sacred ground
Hidden front and center
On the ground beneath
Ordinary days
We search, seek, chase in far off places and fictional “someday when…”
Pay attention
Plant seeds on your path today
Tend, water,
Cast light.

“Every human interaction offers you the chance to make things better or to make things worse.”― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

Oct 8

Wild and Wondering

“Blessed are the wonderers with the courage to live into the questions. Seems to me that sooner or later, whether we like the outcome or not, theirs is the answer.”― Sarah Bessey, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith

“May we be…the ones who hold our opinions loosely and yet love ferociously.”― Sarah Bessey, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith

Curiosity before judgment
Unknowing to broaden, widen, deepen
Inquiry and listening
Abiding and witnessing
Wild, wandering, wondering
Love well, small ways, noticing, tending
Cast light

“Sometimes our most holy calling is to listen, to bear witness.”― Sarah Bessey, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith

Oct 1

Ablaze in Song

“Light burdens, long borne, grow heavy.”― George Herbert

“Loving earth, more of love flows out of me,
for in the leaves is music, in the flowers, a poem,
In the trees is a story of centuries of storms,
endured and stayed as secrets of ages.”
― Jayita Bhattacharjee

Leaves ablaze in song
Celebration of work well-done
Beauty, hope, joy given
Transition to transformation
Soon to releasing, letting go, soft float to the earth
For rest to restoration
Making space for new growth
The gift of seasons.

“In every change, in every falling leaf there is some pain, some beauty. And that’s the way new leaves grow.”― Amit Ray

Sep 28

Autumn Composition

“Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow” – Emily Bronte

Song for Autumn
by Mary Oliver

“In the deep fall
don’t you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,
warm caves, begin to think
of the birds that will come – six, a dozen – to sleep
inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
vanishes, and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its
bellows. And at evening especially,
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.”

What will you bring to this day, this season?
Will you slow, pause, praise?
Or pass by hurriedly in a haze?
Pull over, gaze, graze?
May presence, attention, awe be my first response.
Dancing with wonder too.

“I trust in nature for the stable laws of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant and autumn garner to the end of time.”
Robert Browning

Sep 27

Harvest Hues

“As long as autumn lasts, I shall not have hands, canvas and colours enough to paint the beautiful things I see.” – Vincent Van Gogh

“He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.” – Horace

Colors shifting, softening, glowing
Jewel tones
Depth, hues, nuance
Harvest time
Partake in the feast
Slow pace
Easy cadence
Light step
Beauty woven in each day, season
Hour of living, today.
Discover the gold in your pocket.

“Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.” – Jim Bishop

 

Sep 25

Light Abase and Abound

“Light, my light, the world-filling light, the eye-kissing light, heart-sweetening light!

Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the centre of my life; the light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love; the sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth.

The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light. Lilies and jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light.

The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling, and it scatters gems in profusion.

Mirth spreads from leaf to leaf, my darling, and gladness without measure. The heaven’s river has drowned its banks and the flood of joy is abroad.”― Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali

To gladness overflowing
Brilliant light, blue sky
Floods of joy, on the banks of ordinary days
Luminosity abase and abound
To witness, partake, participate
Peace

Sep 24

Harmony Woven in Presence

“If you live in harmony with nature you will never be poor; if you live according what others think, you will never be rich.”― Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.”― Seneca

This day
Overflowing with possibilities
Presence, curiosity, receptivity
A shift in view
Loosening grip
Open heart and hands
Same place, different person.

“If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.”― Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

Sep 23

Bright Morning Invitation

“Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am the tree planted by the river,
Which will not be moved.
I, the rock, I the river, I the tree
I am yours—your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage,
Need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.
Give birth againTo the dream.” – Maya Angelou, On the Pulse of the Morning

“Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I
And the tree and stone were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow
And when you yet knew you still knew nothing.
The river sings and sings on.” – Maya Angelou, On the Pulse of the Morning

Pulse of a new day.
The rhythm and rhyme.
Poetry woven throughout, rising up, overflowing.
Birthing, renewing, restoring.
Flowing like a river.
Deep roots.
Rock solid.
Good morning, good day, good life.
Accept the invitation.
Grace, hope, joy.

“Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister’s eyes,
Into your brother’s face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.” – Maya Angelou, On the Pulse of the Morning

Sep 22

Enchantment to Transformation

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” – Simone Weil

“Incidentally, the world is magical.
Magic is simply what’s off our human scale… at the moment.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Encounter
Enchantment
Delight
Partake in magic
Woven through the day
Borne of attention, awe and wonder.

“Enchantment arises on the threshold between human activity and nature’s presence. It is always a liminal phenomenon, a momentary relationship, made of the right arrangement on stars and planets and elaborate with art by human consciousness.”― Thomas Moore

Sep 16

Effervecence and Luminosity

“Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.” — Virginia Woolf

“There is a quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no attention to itself, though it is always secretly there. It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility, and our hearts to love life.”— John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Flat rising to effervescence
Luminosity with renewed senses
A deep dive into presence
Holy ease, sacred ground
Soak in light, cast it back out.

“May you recognize in your life the presence, power, and light of your soul. May you realize that you are never alone, that your soul in its brightness and belonging connects you intimately with the rhythm of the universe.”— John O’Donohue, Benedictus

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