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Posts tagged ‘Nature’

Aug 11

Butterfly Attention

“The greatest ownership of all is to glance around and understand.”― William Edgar Stafford

“I embrace emerging experience.
I participate in discovery.
I am a butterfly.
I am not a butterfly collector.
I want the experience of the butterfly.”
― William Stafford

A butterfly dropped before me, arms length
Waking me out of a walking trance
Dancing, following, abiding
Then resting on the tip of a branch
Overseeing, witnessing, participating
To be the butterfly
Drop in ocean
Ocean in drop
Glance and gaze
Big beautiful guiding world all around
To understand and be understood.

“All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.”― Kabir

Aug 10

Amen, Bookends of this Day

“The Amen of nature is always a flower.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Amen by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

“When I forget that the whole world
is holy, even the tiny dark bugs
that slip through window screens
and flock and stick to kitchen lights,
even the charred black remains of forest,
even the river as it floods bright red,
even when my cheeks are tear-stained
and my body tightens with fear,
that is when a kind letter from a stranger
arrives in the mail, or the rabbit will stand
on his back legs to nibble on mint,
or the meadow will blaze with the day’s
last slant of sunlight and my heart opens
so wide that inside the fear rises praise.”

Amen
Hello and Good-bye, everything in between
Start and end this day
Amen
Bookends, woven through the story too
Praise, gratitude, joy
Amen
Curiosity, inquiry, attention
Fresh day
Possibilities and imagination
Beauty and light
Amen
Blooming in brilliant color
Awaiting for our senses to arrive
To join the celebration of the present moment
Amen

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

Aug 2

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Emerging Fullness

“When an incidental color or a random fragrance takes possession of our imagination, we can unexpectedly blossom into a new entity as it gives us wings and enlightens our horizon, just like canary birds that feel stimulated and start singing as soon as they sense the radiance of the sun through the reflection of the skylight.”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Beauty isn’t all about just nice loveliness. Beauty is about more rounded, substantial becoming. So I think beauty in that sense is about an emerging fullness, a greater sense of grace and elegance, a deeper sense of depth, and also a kind of homecoming for the enriched memory of your unfolding life.” – John O’Donohue

Captured by radiance
Stunned by beauty
Pollinating in sweetness
Rising yeast to warm bread
Work of waiting, gazing, reverence
Discipline of restoration
Ebb and flow, cup filled, emptied to be filled again
Unfolding life in ordinary days
Mother of presence
Thin spaces and places
Of joy, awe, wonder

“if you take time not as calendar product but as actually the parent or mother of presence, then you see that, in the world of spirit, time behaves differently” – John O’Donohue

Aug 1

Wild Things Gazing

“Hidden in the glorious wildness like unmined gold.”― John Muir

“When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
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

Withing arms reach, embrace
Outside the door, cross the threshold
The ground before, walk it out
The wild things, the peace and grace
Forest green, woven in plain sight
Slowness to see required
Wonder and awe to enter
Unmined gold
Of nature, not man
Dig daily.

“In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.”― John Muir

Jul 24

Butterfly Dance

“Perhaps the secret of living well is not in having all the answers but in pursuing unanswerable questions in good company.”— Rachel Naomi Remen

“THE OLD WISDOM

When the night wind makes the pine trees creak
And the pale clouds glide across the dark sky,
Go out my child, go out and seek
Your soul: The Eternal I.

For all the grasses rustling at your feet
And every flaming star that glitters high
Above you, close up and meet
In you: The Eternal I.

Yes, my child, go out into the world; walk slow
And silent, comprehending all, and by and by
Your soul, the Universe, will know
Itself: the Eternal I.”
― Jane Goodall, Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey

Present
Awake
Attune
Conversation
Communion
Walk slow
Notice
Comprehend
Hope, joy, peace
Dancing with butterflies.

“The biggest gift you can give is to be absolutely present, and when you’re worrying about whether you’re hopeful or hopeless or pessimistic or optimistic, who cares? The main thing is that you’re showing up, that you’re here and that you’re finding ever more capacity to love this world because it will not be healed without that. That was what is going to unleash our intelligence and our ingenuity and our solidarity for the healing of our world.”― Joanna Macy

Jul 23

Rooted and Rising

“Springtimes have needed you. And there are stars expecting you to notice them.”― Anita Barrows, A Year with Rilke: Daily Readings from the Best of Rainer Maria Rilke

“Between yourself
& the beloved, between yourself & your joy,
the riverbank swaying with wildflowers, the shaft
of sunlight on the rock, the song.
Will you pass through it now, will you let it consume
whatever solidness this is
you call your life, & send
you out, a tremor of heat,
a radiance, a changed
flickering thing?”
― Anita Barrows

Summon awe
Seek wonder
Hunt joy
Offer peace
Attention, reverence, imagination
Yield, open, embrace
Spacious, gracious, delight
Root and rise.

“To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe — to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it — is a wonder beyond words.”― Joanna Macy

Jul 22

Deep Breath, Rapt Attention

“The breath of the mind is attention”― Joseph Joubert, The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert: A Selection

“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.”― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation

Deep breath
Flow and ebb
Rapt attention
Beauty and gratitude rising to the forefront
In communion with this day, fullness of moments
The secret of life

“Remember to breathe. It is after all, the secret of life.”― Gregory Maguire, A Lion Among Men

Jul 19

Holy Underachievement

“The universe is transformation.”― Louise Erdrich

“Blessed are you who are burned out, sun-drenched, and soul-beary.
You who long for rest, but feel pulled in a dozen good directions.
You who feel behind before the day even starts.
Whose group texts go unanswered, and whose sunscreen ran out, and who cannot remember what day of the week it is.
Blessed are you who are trying to care for others, when you barely have anything left to give.
You are blessed when you don’t volunteer to bring orange slices to the soccer match.
When you eat cheese and crackers for dinner again.
When you say, Sorry, I can’t make it.
You’re not lazy. You’re not failing. You are honoring your humanity.
May you find pockets of rest when your body says no more.
May you find something that you can sit down when your calendar begs for margin.
You find a friend who helps shoulder it with you when you are spread too thin.
And may you remember you are not a project to be optimized.
You are a person, a beloved one.
You don’t have to earn rest.
You just have to receive it.”
Kate Bowler: The Summer of Too Much: Practicing Holy Underachievement,

Pockets of rest
No permission needed
Earning not required
Slow down
Savor and soak in this day
Wide margins
Blank canvas
Space to let awe and wonder find you
Receive it
Amazing grace
Peace. Be still.

“NO” for me now is all about making room for more “YES.”― Abbi Jacobson, I Might Regret This: Essays, Drawings, Vulnerabilities, and Other Stuff

Jul 18

Summer’s Work of Presence and Ease

“I drifted into a summer-nap under the hot shade of July, serenaded by a cicada lullaby, to drowsy-warm dreams of distant thunder.”― Terri Guillemets

“The silence in me propels me to fully feel the majesty of nature, to connect to my aliveness in the presence of trees, water, mountains, soft earth.” – John O’Donohue

Summer
A season
A flow
A whisper
A way of being
An ease inviting pause and restoration
Relax and witness the beauty abound
Warm sun
Blue skies
Flowers in bloom
Birds in song
Trees swaying
Soft breeze waltzing
Let summer do its work in you
Majesty and rapt presence
Sweet, slow time

“The beauty of nature insists on taking its time. Everything is prepared. Nothing is rushed. The rhythm of emergence is a gradual slow beat always inching its way forward; change remains faithful to itself until the new unfolds in the full confidence of true arrival.” – John O’Donohue

Jul 14

Today’s Path

“The willingness to consider possibility requires a tolerance of uncertainty.”― Rachel Naomi Remen

“Surrendering the need for an explanation represents a profound act of personal transformation.”― Caroline Myss, Defy Gravity: Healing Beyond the Bounds of Reason

Expand by contracting
Grow by pruning
Awaken by tilling
Clear the clutter
Tune out the noise
Space
Wide margins
Blank page
Fill with fresh color, texture, beauty
New day, new beginning
Walk today’s path.

“Most of us lead far more meaningful lives than we know. Often finding meaning is not about doing things differently; it is about seeing familiar things in new ways. ”― Rachel Naomi Remen, My Grandfather’s Blessings : Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging

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