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Posts tagged ‘Nature’

Dec 21

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Winter Solstice-ing

“May the light illuminate your hearts and shine in your life every day of the year. May everlasting peace be yours and upon our Earth.”― Eileen Anglin

“Don’t think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter. It’s quiet, but the roots are down there riotous.” – Rumi

Shortest day.
Doorway, bridge, beginning.
Darkness tipping to light.
Releasing, melting, shedding.
In the process of things.
Slivers and slices.
Glimmers and graces.
Nothing falling into something.
Slowly. Suddenly. Surprisingly.
Open to embrace what enters when we are looking the other way.
May noticing be first and foremost.
Anchored in light.
Untethered in hope.
Walking with love.
Peace. Light. Joy.

“After the longest night, tomorrow we sing up the dawn. There is a rejoicing that, even in the darkest time, the sun is not vanquished. As of tomorrow, the days begin to get longer as the light of day grows. While the gentle winter sun slowly opens its eyes, let us all bring more light and compassion into the world. ”― Dacha Avelin

Dec 13

Lurking Close at Hand

“In the stillness of quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair.”― Howard Thurman

“There must be always remaining in every life, some place for the singing of angels, some place for that which in itself is breathless and beautiful.”― Howard Thurman

Slow time.
Blank canvas.
Stillness.
Close at hand.
Joy and Peace.
Remembered in real time.

“Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.”― Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart

Dec 10

Shapes of Water

“my dear,
we are all made of water.
it’s okay to rage. sometimes
it’s okay to rest. to recede.”
― Sanober Khan, A Thousand Flamingos

“They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.”― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Moving effortlessly through, over, around rocks
Frozen, suspended in air
Shape and form
Rhythm and ease
Current of flowing waters
Peace, beauty, stillness
Invitation of icicles

“Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.” – Lao Tzu

Dec 7

Rush of Stillness

“The whole world is beautiful, the art is in the seeing.”― Camille Pissarro

“The meaning of awe is to realize that life takes place under wide horizons, horizons that range beyond the span of an individual life or even the life of a nation, a generation, or an era. Awe enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.” – Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man

Winter sunrise
Crisp air
Delayed by awe
Soft whisper, warm light
Invitation of wonder, pause, attention
Rush of stillness
Urgency of slowness
To see and hear anew
With clarity, gratitude, wonder

“TO LISTEN, TO LOOK Is it all sewn up—my life? Is it at this point so predictable, so orderly, so neat, so arranged, so right, that I don’t have time or space for listening for the rustle of angels’ wings or running to stables to see a baby? Could this be what he meant when he said Listen, those who have ears to hear… Look, those who have eyes to see? O God, give me the humbleness of those shepherds who saw in the cold December darkness the Coming of Light the Advent of Love!”— Ann Weems, Kneeling in Bethlehem

Dec 5

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Power of Beauty, Out and In

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely.”― Louisa May Alcott

Put beauty in your path every day.
It’s not hard to be found.
Pause, look up and around.
Buy yourself flowers.
Take a walk in the woods.
Drive a different way.
Read poetry.
Turn off auto-pilot.
Turn up the music and sing.
Look within and find it too.
Kindness, compassion, humor.
Celebrate this day.
On the very ground you stand.
Imperfection and all.
This day shall not pass again.
Do not pass it by.

“The greatest illusion is that life should be perfect”― Charlie Mackesy

Nov 27

Gratitude, Thankfulness, Praise

“Pied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things–
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced–fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.”
― Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

“Thankfulness finds its full measure in generosity of presence, both through participation and witness. We sit at the table as part of every other person’s world while making our own world without will or effort, this is what is extraordinary and gifted, this is the essence of gratefulness, seeing to the heart of privilege. Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence meets all other presences. Being unappreciative might mean we are simply not paying attention.” – David Whyte

Soft heart
Listening ear
Joyful stance
Warm embrace
Enter this day anew, fresh eyes
Free from expectations, demands, assumptions
Fully present, rapt attention, kindness, hospitality, light, laughter
Awake to beauty all around and within
Love well
Gratitude, Thankfulness, Praise
Happy Thanksgiving

“GRATITUDE is not a passive response to something we have been given, gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without and beside us. Gratitude is not necessarily something that is shown after the event, it is the deep, a-priori state of attention that shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life.” – David Whyte

Nov 25

infinitesimals

“I am a hunter of beauty and I move slow and I keep the eyes wide, every fiber of every muscle sensing all wonder and this is the thrill of the hunt and I could be an expert on the life full, the beauty meat that lurks in every moment.”― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“The whole of the life — even the hard — is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole. These are new language lessons, and I live them out. There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.”― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

Fullness of time
Made of moments
Ordinary days
Encounters
Glances and gazing
Attention and expectation
Joy before us each day
Woven in beauty, gratitude, grace and noticing

“Wherever you are, be all there.” I have lived the runner, panting ahead in worry, pounding back in regrets, terrified to live in the present, because here-time asks me to do the hardest of all: just open wide and receive.”― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

Nov 23

The Work of Attention, Presence

“Friluftsliv is about communing with nature and with yourself, and about unburdening oneself from anything but being present. It’s about disconnecting from the day-to-day in order to connect with something older, wilder, and larger.”― Kari Leibowitz, How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days

The work of not working
Of slowing, rest, recreation
Witnessing and observing
Quieting
Noticing
Listening
At ease
Allowing
Abiding
Experiences and encounters
Of presence
Rather than productivity, performance, speed
Awe, wonder, enchantment
Communion, relating, tending
Deep in the journey of this day
Be here, now.

“How we attend to things shapes our existence. Our attention is a powerful tool, and it plays a tremendous role in our everyday experience. What we attend to becomes what we see, and what we see becomes what we engage with, and what we engage with becomes our life.”― Kari Leibowitz, How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days

Nov 13

Gifts of Listening

“God is more time than schedules, more grace than boundaries, more everything than the imaginable.”― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native

“Help me resist the urge to dispute whether things are true or false which is like arguing whether it is day or night. It is always one or the other somewhere in the world. Together, we can penetrate a higher truth which like the sun is always being conveyed.”― Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What Is Sacred

Either or
Duality
Multiple choice, one answer only
Skimming the surface
Life is not a checklist, spreadsheet, calculator, mere transactions
It’s an essay to be written, rewritten
Complexity and nuance of relationships, connections, patterns
Rhythm, dance to move with
Ebb and flow, current
Inhale and exhale
Canvas to be painted
Outside the line
All of the colors
Beneath the surface
Above the noise
Listen closely, quietly
Pay attention
Big yes, lean in, awe and wonder
The work of being rather than the regiment of doing.

“No one can teach us how to intuitively listen or trust, but the quiet courage to say yes rather than no is close to each of us. It involves holding our opinions and identity lightly so we can be touched by the future. It means loosening our fist-like hold on how we see the world, so that other views can reach us, expand us, deepen us, and rearrange us. Saying yes is the bravest way to keep leaning into life.”― Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What Is Sacred

Nov 11

Cultivate, Wait, Flow

“In the continuous flow of blessing our heart finds meaning and rest.”― David Steindl-Rast

“Times that challenge us physically, emotionally, and spiritually may make it almost impossible for us to feel grateful. Yet, we can decide to live gratefully, courageously open to life in all its fullness. By living in a gratefulness that we don’t feel, we begin to feel the gratefulness we live.”― David Steindl-Rast

Wait or cultivate
A grateful heart when circumstances don’t warrant
When others don’t cooperate, go our way
Laughter amid “serious” business
Joy in dailyness
Gratitude forced to flowing
Platitude to planted
Cultivate and wait, tend
Deep breath
Thankfully rooted on the ground of this day
On the wave of presence
At-homeness.

“When we cultivate that gratefulness to life, we not only cultivate trust in life and openness for surprise, we practice again and again saying yes to our limitless belonging to this great Earth household. That roots us and makes us at home; it gives us that great at-homeness.”― Brother David Steindl-Rast

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