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Posts tagged ‘Nature’

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

Nov 8

Beauty Lingers, Awaiting Your Noticing

“one small thing
I’ve learned these years,
how to be alone,
and at the edge of aloneness
how to be found by the world.”
― David Whyte, River Flow

“Song for Autumn”

Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now
how comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of the air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees, especially those with
mossy hollows, are beginning to look for

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
stiffens and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its long blue shadows. The wind wags
its many tails. And in the evening
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.”― Mary Oliver

Autumn beauty lingering
Awaiting your noticing
Partaking
Praise
Presence
Finish opening the gifts of the season
Beauty within and out
In all seasons.

“When we devote some calm time to the heart and come off the treadmill of stress and distraction we can enter into the beauty within.  Each of us can prepare for that inner arrival: where ‘night holds sway’ and the inner forest becomes ‘free of strangers’.” – John O’Donohue

Nov 4

Cultivate, Bear Good Fruit

“Solitude is the soil in which genius is planted, creativity grows, and legends bloom; faith in oneself is the rain that cultivates a hero to endure the storm, and bare the genesis of a new world, a new forest.”― Mike Norton, White Mountain

“Cultivating the power of presence comes from creating the space to observe one’s mind and one’s self.”― Dee Waldeck

Till soil
Cast seeds
Water roots
Look up to the sun
Tend to self and others
Cultivate joy, kindness, love
Garden well
Bear good fruit.

“We must cultivate our garden.”― Voltaire

Nov 2

November Color, Light, Bloom

“Trees still grow after letting dead things go.”― Darnell Lamont Walker

“WELCOME NOVEMBER…

There is something about November that says ‘just keep going’.
We are not quite through the year yet the finish-line looms out of nowhere.
We are plunged into darkness by Mother Nature.
We are faced with the ‘season of joy’,
and yet many of us wonder where we will find it.

And I think November is a great time to take a little peek behind you,
and see just how much you’ve done.
To take stock of your achievements, your endurance,
your survival.
To rest, reinforce, before the festivities envelope us all.
Before beautiful new beginnings.

And most importantly, November is a time to seek out light.
As the natural order darkens, we must find it ourselves.
We must do whatever we can to brighten our day,
our home, the world.

Seek out light wherever you can my friends,
and pay no heed to those who condemn your sparkle.

You are much-needed.

Keep showing up, in that special way only you can do.
And show up for yourself too
(which can sometimes mean not showing up somewhere else).

This year has been hard.

Again.

But beautiful.

Again.

As is the way of life.

As is the way of life.” – Donna Ashworth

Music. Light. Dance. Color.
Partake, participate.
Keep showing up.
In all seasons.
Do not rank.
Do not discard.
Do not dismiss.
Be present, with vigor.
There is joy here.
To be found.
To be given.
To receive.
The way of life.
Well-lived, daily.
While in it.

“You are the music while the music lasts.”― T.S. Eliot

Nov 1

No Moment Too Small

“There is a necessary wisdom in the give-and-take of nature—its quiet agreements and search for balance. There is an extraordinary generosity.”― Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest

“There is no moment too small in the world. Nothing should be lost. Everything has a purpose, and everything is in need of care. This is my creed. Let us embrace it. We can watch it rise. Just like that, at any time—all the time—wealth and grace will soar.”― Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest

May you notice the big in the small.
Experience calm in the storm.
Drink in beauty, around and abound.
Pause, kneel, praise.
Magnificence woven in ordinary days.
No moment too small.

“We think that most important clues are large, but the world loves to remind us that they can be beautifully small.”― Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest

Oct 30

Uninhibited. Unafraid. Untethered. 

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

“What might we learn if we listen, if we wade in—unafraid, untethered, and uninhibited—ready to become the ones we were created to become.”― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native

More space, margins, imagination
Less busy, noise, doing
More and less
Awe and gratitude
Beauty and wonder
Always arriving, becoming, unfolding
Time does not stop, rewind, jump ahead
Today is what lies before each of us
For grace, sense and capacity to be here fully
Uninhibited. Unafraid. Untethered.

“You are a human being. You are always arriving.”― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Living Resistance

Oct 29

Walking Home

“When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are …
… lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.”- Ram Dass

“Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.”― The Dalai Lama

Find the beauty.
Daily.
It’s there.
Look longer.
Dive in, both feet.
Expand your heart.
Open your mind.
Curiosity. Joy. Kindness.
Love well.
Transform the world.
Walk each other home.

“Our work is to call each other home, to call to one another’s spirits and say, “This is for you. This is what it means to be human, to love and be loved. Let’s learn from one another as we go.”― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native

Oct 28

The Doing of Undoing

“If you don’t know what to do next take the oath that will enhance your soul and erase your ego, & from the quiet space inside yourself, you will know what to do.”― Nikki Rowe

“The timeline of your life is not a straight line, after all; it is a series of ebbs and flows, backs and forths, heres and theres. You are nowhere and everywhere all at once, and that means that most of the time, the best you can do is be present to the moment, be open to the unlearning and the learning, and trust that you’re doing the work of Love.”― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Living Resistance

Rolling
Rhythm
Unraveled
Ebb
Flow
Unbound
Untangled
Unwound
Relax
Release
Recover
Remake
Renew
Refresh
Awe, wonder, reverence, ease
Being, unbeing
Learning, unlearning
The doing of undoing.

“Identity does not come to us without journey, because to learn who we are means we face difficult truths in our own lives and imagine what life might look like as those truths work themselves out inside of us.”― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native

Oct 21

2 Comments

World in a Leaf

“It’s possible to understand the world from studying a leaf. You can comprehend the laws of aerodynamics, mathematics, poetry and biology through the complex beauty of such a perfect structure.
It’s also possible to travel the whole globe and learn nothing.”
― Joy Harjo, The Woman Who Fell from The Sky: Poems

“Bless the poets, the workers for justice,
the dancers of ceremony, the singers of heartache,
the visionaries, all makers and carriers of fresh
meaning—We will all make it through,
despite politics and wars, despite failures
and misunderstandings. There is only love.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

Proximity and attention
Inquiry and perusal
Curiosity and imagination
Awe and wonder
Finding the world in a leave rippling with color
A flower breaking earth
The pulse of a poem
With enthusiasm, anticipation, hope, delight
Fresh morning, new meaning.

“Gather strength, pull it in
Be right where you are.”
― Joy Harjo, An American Sunrise

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