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Posts tagged ‘Nature’

Jun 23

Today’s Sky

“This sky
Where we live
Is no place to lose your wings
So love, love
Love.”
― Hafez, The Gift

“Now that your worry has proved such an unlucrative business,
Why not find a better job?”
― Hafez, The Poetry Pharmacy Returns

Above the noise.
Amidst the busy.
Beyond the doing.
Thin spaces.
Of slowing, pause, margin.
Listen, look, gaze.
Stop. Sit. Savor.
Grace and gratitude are at play.
The Real Fun of this day.
Full presence, active participation, wings in motion.
Cast light and love.

“Zero
Is where the Real Fun starts.
There’s too much counting
Everywhere else!”
― Hafez, I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy

Jun 18

Grace of Wonder, Beauty, Light

“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

“May the beauty of your life become more visible to you, that you may glimpse your wild divinity.
May the wonders of the earth call you forth from all your small, secret prisons and set your feet free in the pastures of possibilities.
May the light of dawn anoint your eyes that you may behold what a miracle a day is.
May the liturgy of twilight shelter all your fears and darkness within the circle of ease.
May the angel of memory surprise you in bleak times with new gifts from the harvest of your vanished days.
May you allow no dark hand to quench the candle of hope in your heart.
May you discover a new generosity towards yourself, and encourage yourself to engage your life as a great adventure.
May the outside voices of fear and despair find no echo in you.
May you always trust the urgency and wisdom of your own spirit.
May the shelter and nourishment of all the good you have done, the love you have shown, the suffering you have carried, awaken around you to bless your life a thousand times.
And when love finds the path to your door may you open like the earth to the dawn, and trust your every hidden color towards its nourishment of light.
May you find enough stillness and silence to savor the kiss of God on your soul and delight in the eternity that shaped you, that holds you and calls you.
And may you know that despite confusion, anxiety and emptiness, your name is written in Heaven.
And may you come to see your life as a quiet sacrament of service, which awakens around you a rhythm where doubt gives way to the grace of wonder, where what is awkward and strained can find elegance, and where crippled hope can find wings, and torment enter at last unto the grace of serenity.
May Divine Beauty bless you.” – John O’Donohue, Beauty – The Invisible Embrace

Beauty, imagination, kindness, hope, wonder, beauty, joy, enthusiasm, awe, generosity, love.
Ignite, fan the flames, stoke the fire.
“May the outside voices of fear and despair find no echo in you”
Grace of wonder, wings of hope, urgency of spirit.
Thoughts, words, actions.
Cast light.

“Hope is a waking dream.”― Aristotle

Jun 10

Beauty Bursting Everywhere, Notice

“Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.”
― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”― Rumi

Winter melting into spring, spilling into summer.
Frozen ground to softening.
Seeds unfolding into buds.
Breaking ground.
Bursting into bloom.
Exploding in color, dance, delight.
Enter each and every season that comes with curiosity, bewilderment.
The same transformed into new.
Rooted in attention and awareness.
Gratitude and grace.
Beauty bursting everywhere, notice.
This is life.
Right now.

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”― Rumi

May 29

Eyes to Begin Anew, Again and Again

“Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty if only we have the eyes to see them.”― John Ruskin

“Suddenly, sun. Over my shoulder
in the middle of gray November
what I hoped to do comes back,
asking.

Across the street the fiery trees
hold onto their leaves,
red and gold in the final months
of this unfinished year,
they offer blazing riddles.

In the frozen fields of my life
there are no shortcuts to spring,
but stories of great birds in migration
carrying small ones on their backs,
predators flying next to warblers
they would, in a different season, eat.

Stunned by the astonishing mix in this uneasy world
that plunges in a single day from despair
to hope and back again, I commend my life
to Ruskin’s difficult duty of delight,
and to that most beautiful form of courage,
to be happy.” – Jeanne Lohmann

Seasons, circles, rhythms.
Ebb and flow of living present.
Awake and aware.
Unfolding and becoming.
Familiar yet not the same.
As Heraclitus’ said “no man ever steps in the same river twice”
Our daily work?
To be in this day alone and know that we have arrived.
In being not doing.
To the difficult duty of delight.
With courage to be happy now, not someday when.
Senses honed, fresh eyes to take in beauty, abase and abound.

“Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.”― John Ruskin, The Two Paths

May 28

Light and Gravity

“Love is not consolation. It is light.”― Simone Weil

“Late Fragment

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.”
― Raymond Carver, A New Path to the Waterfall

 May you experience the light of love.
Invite, embrace and cast it back out.
The gravity of joy, awe, wonder.
Anchor, root, extend.
Beloved on the earth.
Inviting others to partake.
Taste and see.
Light and gravity.
Love always wins.

“Two forces rule the universe: light and gravity.”― Simone Weil

May 26

Just

“Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” – Chinese Proverb

“Don’t Just

Don’t just learn, experience.
Don’t just read, absorb.
Don’t just change, transform.
Don’t just relate, advocate.
Don’t just promise, prove.
Don’t just criticize, encourage.
Don’t just think, ponder.
Don’t just take, give.
Don’t just see, feel.
Don’t just dream, do.
Don’t just hear, listen.
Don’t just talk, act.
Don’t just tell, show.
Don’t just exist, live.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

Create
Pursue
Receive
Build
Carve
Burrow
Explore
Craft
Shape
Aborb
Sift
In the act
Bridges built
Connections made
Light cast
From hearing to listening
From seeing to vision
From sleep to awake.

“There’s a lot of difference between listening and hearing.”― G.K. Chesterton

May 16

Marvel and Delight

“Sometimes love does not look like what you had in mind.” – Anne Lamott

“O thou who are trying to learn the marvel of Love through the copybook of reason, I am very much afraid you will never see the point.”― Hafez

Not looking back.
Rehashing, repurposing old things.
Blocking the path for new things arise and take hold.
Aiming too low.
Remaining too small.
Foreboding joy.
Put down filters, assumptions.
New pair of glasses.
Fresh eyes.
One beautiful day at a time.
More than enough.

“What Do sad people have in Common? It seems They have all built a shrine To the past And often go there And do a strange wail and Worship. What is the beginning of Happiness? It is to stop being So religious Like That.”― Hafez

May 15

The Work of Summer

“How
Did the rose
Ever open its heart
And give to this world
All its
Beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light
Against its Being.
Otherwise,
We all remain
Too
Frightened”
― Hafez

“When all your desires are distilled
You will cast just two votes:
To love more,
And be happy.”
― Hafez

Time and timing.
Slow and steady.
Steep and savor.
Summer’s invitation, call, purpose.
The work of summer.
More being, less doing.
The world ablaze with color, fragrance, light.
Rooted on sacred ground.
Reaching for the sky.

“Now that your worry has proved such an unlucrative business,
Why not find a better job?”― Hafez

May 14

Rising Up Rooted

“If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

How we think of things
The work behind the work
The stories we tell
Plot twist
Draw into mystery rather than false certainty
Inquiry, attention, listening
A new story unfolding
Blank page to be written
Broaden, deepen, widen
Widening circles
Deep roots
New risings

“I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.”― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

May 10

A Part of the Silence

“In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence.”― Robert Lynd

“…a new day was starting, the things of the garden were not concerned with our troubles. A blackbird ran across the rose-garden to the lawns in swift, short rushes, stopping now and again to stab at the earth with his yellow beak. A thrush, too, went about his business, and two stout, little wagtails, following one another, and a little cluster of twittering sparrows. A gull poised himself high in the air, silent and alone, and then spread his wings wide and swooped beyond the lawns to the woods and the Happy Valley. These things continued, our worries and anxieties had no power to alter them.”― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

May nothing come of this day
Nothing produced
Done
Completed
Checked off
Taken care of
Wide open fields
Slow walks with nowhere to go
Blank canvas to fill with presence and delight
Wandering
Exploring
Quietly observing
Doing can wait
Being more than enough
Become part of the silence
Where nothing transforms into everything

“All trees and birds
sky and stars
bosoms and bangles
were seeing everything.”― Suman Pokhrel

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