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Posts tagged ‘Nature’

Mar 21

Steadfast and Still

“…smile first, then speak.”― George Saunders, The Braindead Megaphone

“Be still, my soul, and steadfast.
Earth and heaven both are still watching
though time is draining from the clock
and your walk, that was confident and quick,
has become slow.

So, be slow if you must, but let
the heart still play its true part.
Love still as once you loved, deeply
and without patience. Let God and the world
know you are grateful. That the gift has been given.” – Mary Oliver

Become slow.
Stop.
What we take up
What we put down
Choose
Inflection point
A-ha moment
The pivot
Emergence in the pause
The gift has been given
Accept and embrace

“Grateful and awake, ask what you need to know. Say what you feel now. Love what you love now.” – Mark Nepo

Mar 19

Daily Work of Delighting

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” – Rumi

“We have to fight them daily, lake fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.”― Etty Hillesum

Care without carrying it all
Pause to root, reset, redirect
Laughter to lighten the load
Wander to enter awe and wonder again and again
Nature to awaken the senses
Reverence to till gratitude
Kindness to soften the heart
A coat of joy to wear on the journey
May you find delight today
And let it in

“A desire to kneel down sometimes pulses through my body, or rather it is as if my body has been meant and made for the act of kneeling. Sometimes, in moments of deep gratitude, kneeling down becomes an overwhelming urge, head deeply bowed, hands before my face.”― Etty Hillesum

“Despite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.”― Etty Hillesum, Lettres de westerbork

Mar 10

The Gardener’s Work

“We mature by meeting life, just as God and nature designed it, and accepting there the invitations that beckon us ever deeper into the heart of life itself.”― Ronald Rolheiser, Sacred Fire

The Gardener by Mary Oliver

“Have I lived enough?
Have I loved enough?
Have I considered Right Action enough, have I come to any conclusions?
Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude?
Have I endured loneliness with grace?

I say this, or perhaps I’m just thinking it.
Actually, I probably think too much.

Then I step out into the garden,
where the gardener, who is said to be a simple man,
is tending his children, the roses.”

Live
Love
Right Action
Gratitude
Grace
Till, plant, water, wait, trust, rest, hope.
Winter creates the runway.
Spring always lands.
The Gardener of all seasons ever-present.
Tending.

“True restfulness, though, is a form of awareness, a way of being in life. It is living ordinary life with a sense of ease, gratitude, appreciation, peace and prayer. We are restful when ordinary life is enough.”― Ronald Rolheiser, The Shattered Lantern: Rediscovering a Felt Presence of God

Mar 9

Nature’s Song

“Nature is the one song of praise that never stops singing.” – Richard Rohr

“Don’t waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pick up
Put down
What to bypass, discard, hold, carry
Take a break, a respite, a sliver of pause
The beauty of the good
Praise, gratitude and reverence
To reset, recalibrate and choose where to put attention, effort and energy
Sunday well and walk forward with peace grounded in love.

“The longer I live, the more I observe that carrying around anger is the most debilitating to the person who bears it.”― Katharine Graham

Mar 8

The Science of Art

“Colors have the capacity to change our respiration, our blood pressure, even our body temperature.”― Susan Magsamen, Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us

“Play is a key component of the arts and aesthetics in myriad ways. Art and play are like two sides of the same coin, with play being a part of artistic expression, imagination, creativity, and curiosity.”― Susan Magsamen, Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us

Outstanding podcast on making this week by Kelly Corrigan with the authors of Your Brain on Art on the science of how art heals, develops, expands and transforms us.

Get outside
Doodle, color, paint
Listen to music
Nature
Art museum
Play
Have fun
Fresh air
Colors, fragrances, light
Awaken all of your senses
Make rather than do
Build up rather than break down
Unfold rather than bind up
Breathe, in and out
There’s plenty of chaos, noise and destruction right now
Regain your footing to add and multiply rather than divide and subtract
Permission slip granted to go on a field trip daily
To be renewed, refreshed and ready to participate meaningfully rather than spectate in exhaustion
Long game, joy, resilience and grit required
Recess on

“Learning comes in many forms: cognitive, emotional, embodied. There is explicit learning, where you actively seek knowledge, and implicit learning, where you passively take in experiences that change you. Many elements go into making experiences more salient for learning, among them novelty, humor, curiosity, attention level, creativity, motivation, environment, and the unique way your brain develops.”― Susan Magsamen, Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us

Mar 3

Off Path to Wonder

“The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter” – Mark Twain

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.”― Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

Less doing, busy, transactions
More making, building, creating
Color, oxygen, joy, light, music, art, nature, fun
To root, renew, restore
A sense of wonder and awe
Ease  and delight found in wandering off path, discovery
Gratitude in praise
For another day
And the sense and openness to breathe it all in
Walk lightly, with anticipation and delight.

“Forgiveness is a refusal to armor your own heart—a refusal to live in a constricted heart,” he said, seemingly as much to himself as to me. “Living with that openness means feeling pain. It’s not pretty, but the alternative is feeling nothing at all.”― Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

Mar 2

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Tender Hope, Sweet Grace

 

“We should always allow some time to elapse, for time discloses the truth.” – Seneca

“Hope has holes in its pockets. It leaves little crumb trails so that we, when anxious, can follow it. Hope’s secret: it doesn’t know the destination-it knows only that all roads begin with one foot in front of the other.” – Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

One foot then the next
To walk in joy
To plant seeds of kindness, peace, compassion
To keep our power, resilience, wonder, awe
Steady, consistent, small acts
One foot then the next
Tender hope, sweet grace
Love well, cast light
The long cut.

“There are many reasons to treat each other
with great tenderness. One is
the sheer miracle that we are here together
on a planet surrounded by dying stars.
One is that we cannot see what
anyone else has swallowed.”
― Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, The Poets Project at Casa Grande

Feb 24

Time Opened Up

“Let us remember within us the quiver-touch of the sun” – John O’Donohue

“The Greeks believed that time had secret structure. There was the moment of Epiphany when time suddenly opened and something was revealed in luminous clarity. There was the moment of krisis when time got entangled and directions became confused and contradictory. There was also the moment of kairos; this was the propitious moment. Time opened up in kindness and promise. All the energies cohered to offer a fecund occasion of initiative, creativity, and promise. Part of the art of living wisely is to learn to recognize and attend to such profound openings in one’s life.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Slow entry.
When rushed, pause.
When looking back too long, turn your eyes to the road before
When looking ahead too long, look up at the sky
To anchor in today
Root in the present
Quiver-touch of the sun
Do not forgo joy to circumstances, to someday, to the past, to the future
Peace, delight, ease this day
Slow entry, steady pace, slow exit
Middle places filled with laughter, kindness,  promise
Awaiting our participation, care, attention

“THE INNER HISTORY OF A DAY No one knew the name of this day; Born quietly from deepest night, It hid its face in light, Demanded nothing for itself, Opened out to offer each of us A field of brightness that traveled ahead, Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps And the light of thought to show the way. The mind of the day draws no attention; It dwells within the silence with elegance”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Feb 23

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in the way of beauty

“There’s always a sunrise and always a sunset and it’s up to you to choose to be there for it… put yourself in the way of beauty.”— Cheryl Strayed

“… poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.”― Audre Lorde

To aim
Direct
Guide
Lean
Pursue
Choose
To put yourself in the way of beauty everyday
Sunrise, sunset, flowers, smiles, kindness, generosity, attention, color, laughter, connection, curiosity, joy
Poetry of life
To be made new
Fresh legs to walk out ordinary days
In extraordinary reverence, grace and gratitude

“It is strange how a scrap of poetry works in the mind and makes the legs move in time to it along the road.”― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

Feb 22

2 Comments

Young by Heart, Not Years

“If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.”― George Eliot, Middlemarch

What Can I Say by Mary Oliver

“What can I say that I have not said before?
So I’ll say it again.
The leaf has a song in it.
Stone is the face of patience.
Inside the river there is an unfinishable story and you are somewhere in it and it will never end until all ends.

Take your busy heart to the art museum and the chamber of commerce
but take it also to the forest.
The song you heard singing in the leaf when you were a child is singing still.
I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four, and the leaf is singing still.”

Old, young, in-between
Fast, slow, stop
More slow for awe
Less doing for being
Rapt attention and reverence
To hear the song in the leaf
Rock solid in patience of unfolding and becoming
In the flow and current of life
Young by heart, not years
Embracing joy, wonder, delight

“When I was young, I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing. And I leapt at the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are.”― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore

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