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Posts tagged ‘Nature’

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

Sep 15

Consent to Presence

“To make bread or love, to dig in the earth, to feed an animal or cook for a stranger—these activities require no extensive commentary, no lucid theology. All they require is someone willing to bend, reach, chop, stir. Most of these tasks are so full of pleasure that there is no need to complicate things by calling them holy. And yet these are the same activities that change lives, sometimes all at once and sometimes more slowly, the way dripping water changes stone. In a world where faith is often construed as a way of thinking, bodily practices remind the willing that faith is a way of life.”― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

“The treasure we seek requires no lengthy expedition, no expensive equipment, no superior aptitude or special company. All we lack is the willingness to imagine that we already have everything we need. The only thing missing is our consent to be where we are.”― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

Slowing to attention
Falling into presence, reverence
Slow drip to rhythm of waves, beating of heart
Canopy of the sky
Treasure on the ground of this day.

“Busy? The word loses all meaning under the canopy of this sky.”― Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark: A Study of Spiritual Growth Through Darkness

Sep 12

1 Comment

Shortcut to Awe

“GET OUTDOORS.”― Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life

“Tap into your childlike sense of wonder. Young children are in an almost constant state of awe since everything is so new to them. During your walk, try to approach what you see with fresh eyes, imagining that you’re seeing it for the first time. Take a moment in each walk to take in the vastness of things, for example in looking at a panoramic view or up close at the detail of a leaf or flower. Go somewhere new. Each week, try to choose a new location. You’re more likely to feel awe in a novel environment where the sights and sounds are unexpected and unfamiliar to you. That said, some places never seem to get old, so there’s nothing wrong with revisiting your favorite spots if you find that they consistently fill you with awe. The key is to recognize new features of the same old place.”― Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life

Small things
Abundant in ordinary days
A walk in the woods
Blue sky
Flowers unfolding
Fresh air
Wander and wonder
Vastness, depth, expanse
Same transformed by awe.

“Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world.”― Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life

Sep 8

Streaming Wonder

“Take time to see the quiet miracles that
eek no attention”― John O’Donohue

“When our eyes are graced with wonder, the world reveals its wonders to us. There are people who see only dullness in the world and that is because their eyes have already been dulled. So much depends on how we look at things. The quality of our looking determines what we come to see.”― John O’Donohue, Beauty: A Study of Beauty in Celtic Spirituality and the Human Spirit

Quality of looking, glance to gaze
Streaming, weaving wonder
Revealing and unfolding
Angle of awe
Flowing, looking with fresh eyes.

“I would love to live like a river flows,
carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.”― John O’Donohue

 

Sep 2

Hidden, Front and Center

“Be still and listen to the voices that belong
to the stream banks and the trees and the open fields.
Find your hope, then, on the ground under your feet.”― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

“Sometimes hidden from me
in daily custom and in trust,
so that I live by you unaware
as by the beating of my heart,

Suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of thicket, grace and light
where yesterday was only shade,

and once again I am blessed, choosing
again what I chose before.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

Not for more or different.
But for gratitude and grace, senses ablaze.
To recognize and partake in blessings, beauty, light.
Already present in abundance.
On the ground I stand.
Prayer, poetry, proclamation.

“For everything that comes
is a gift, the meaning always
carried out of sight
to renew our whereabouts,
always a starting place.
And every gift is perfect
in its beginning, for it
is “from above, and cometh down
from the Father of lights.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

Aug 27

Glance to Gaze of Wild Things

“Even the sun directs our gaze away from itself and to the life illumined by it.”― Eberhard Arnold, Salt and Light

“I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”― Wendell Berry

Thought
Not before or after
Here in this place
Glance to Gaze
Peace
Illumination
Imagination
Still waters
Grace flowing, overflowing.

“Run into peace.”― Meister Eckhart

Aug 25

Skybounding

“The garden of the world has no limits, except in your mind.”― Rumi

“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

Pull over.
Put down.
Look up.
Delight in this place and space.
Nowhere to be but here.

“Don’t keep searching for the truth; Just let go of your opinions.”― 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

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