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Posts tagged ‘optimism’

Throwing Starfish

“the Heavenly Pivot, a turning point in life in which knowledge is worn into knowing, watching into joining, seeking into being, and struggling with truth is worn into inhabiting the truth of struggle.” – Mark Nepo, The Fifth Season: Creativity in the Second Half of Life

“While wandering a deserted beach at dawn, stagnant in my work, I saw a man in the distance bending and throwing as he walked the endless stretch toward me. As he came near, I could see that he was throwing starfish, abandoned on the sand by the tide, back into the sea. When he was close enough I asked him why he was working so hard at this strange task. He said that the sun would dry the starfish and they would die. I said to him that I thought he was foolish. There were thousands of starfish on miles and miles of beach. One man alone could never make a difference. He smiled as he picked up the next starfish. Hurling it far into the sea he said, “It makes a difference for this one.” I abandoned my writing and spent the morning throwing starfish.”― Loren Eiseley

From knowledge to knowing
Watching to joining
Seeking to being
Make a difference today
Be kind, open doors, yield, be present, plant seeds of encouragement, love generously, hope fiercely, laugh heartily, cast light
And know that it’s enough, abundant and overflowing
Start and keep throwing starfish.

“The door is open. Go.”― Louise Erdrich, The Sentence

Shout of Joy!

“Inside everyone is a great shout of joy waiting to be born.”― David Whyte, River Flow: New & Selected Poems

Everything is Waiting for You by David Whyte

“Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.” – David Whyte

Poetry of presence, beginnings, spring bloom
Everything is waiting for you to notice
Coming alive
Bursting with color
Dance with wonder, awe and beauty
Woven through this very day

“Colors are the smiles of nature.” – Leigh Hunt

Doorway to New World, Spring Threshold

“Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.” – John Muir

“No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.” – Thomas Merton

April showers to May threshold to spring
Unfolding and unfurling
The world is greening, budding
Path to full bloom
Transition to transformation
On full display played
Do not miss the show
Get outside
Breath it in with all of your senses
Doorway to a new world, listening heaven
This day is your life
Participate, celebrate, cast light.

“Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.” – Rabindranath Tagore

Defying Gravity

“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“A bird is safe in its nest – but that is not what its wings are made for.”― Amit Ray, World Peace: The Voice of a Mountain Bird

A shift in attitude
An ounce of gratitude
A cup of encouragement
Putting down my way
For what is
Seeking and finding delight, joy and beauty
On ground of now
In the imperfect, unchosen, unexpected
Abundance in mystery, unknowing, wandering
Some days may be long, but the years are short
Use your wings
Defy gravity
Take flight in the sky of this day.

“The days are long, but the years are short.” – Gretchen Rubin

Hope Beams

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” – Desmond Tutu

“You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.” – Michelle Obama

Beautiful, tangible, tough, gritty hope.
Fight the good fight.
Stay the course.
Stick the landing.
Keep going.
Light breaks through.
Spring never skips its turn.

“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

Making Bread

“You miss the living because you are waiting for perfect, and so you let goodness and blessings pass you right on by.”― Emily P. Freeman, Graceful (For Young Women): Letting Go of Your Try-Hard Life

“I don’t want to live my life in such a hurry that I’m always closing the fridge door with my foot and scribbling out birthday cards in my car at the last minute. I want to make bread, or at least find the time to toast it.”― Emily P. Freeman, Simply Tuesday: Small-Moment Living in a Fast-Moving World

Fun
Play
Laughter
Connection
Joy
Delight
Gratitude
Generosity
Kindness
Praise
Reverence
Awe
Empathy
Compassion
Yielding
Inviting
Pausing
Slowing
Kneeling
Wonder
Smiling
Kneading
The ingredients for the bread of life
Make bread
Toast it too

“To name a place requires us to be in a place. It requires us to resist dreaming of where we should be and look around where we are.”― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

Wildflower Spinning

“God is not a technician. God is an Artist. This is the God who made you. The same God who lives inside of you. He comes into us, then comes out of us, in a million little ways. That’s why there’s freedom, even in the blah. Hope, even in the dark. Love, even in the fear. Trust, even as we face our critics. And believe in the midst of all that? It feels like strength and depth and wildflower spinning; it feels risky and brave and underdog winning. It feels like redemption. It feels like art.”― Emily P. Freeman, A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live

“As we stand at new beginnings and grieve those long goodbyes, teach us what it means to hold on to what we need for the journey and gently let the rest go. Father, you bring new mercies every morning and give us the grace to start over as many times as we might need. Keep pace with us as we learn to keep pace with you. Thank you for not rolling your eyes when we find ourselves here again. Give us the courage to pick what we like and the patience to see how it grows.”― Emily P. Freeman, The Next Right Thing: A Simple, Soulful Practice for Making Life Decisions

A year ago today, I “officially” started my business KP Connections LLC.
Name, legal structure, business model, plan and general direction.
The decision, tipping point, crossing the threshold.
Moving from the hallway between rooms to entering a new room.
Many steps before the decision to leap, one step to leap.
Many steps after and continue to be revealed to this day, tomorrow, the next day too.
It would be months before I announced in July and only a handful of people knew at this point.
Walking beside me through the examination, contemplation, exploration, shaping.
Deeply grateful for those companions, questioners, cheerleaders.
But we ultimately make decisions for our life alone.
Little and big.
Owning that gives us power and responsibility.
To stay, to go, to tolerate, to accept, to reject, to stagnate, to grow, to keep changing, to be changed in the process.
Not deciding is deciding.
We put too much weight on decisions, as if it’s the only step to be made.
Mistakes and missteps guaranteed.
Allowing the path to unfold in the walking out daily is the journey.
It’s the point.
We don’t need everything figured out to start, but we do need to start, taking a step at a time.
To aim, work, go in a direction, follow signs, discern signals, see patterns, pivot when necessary, stay the course, fall, rise, pause, rest, start again and keep moving.
Trusting the process, enjoying the journey.
Work to get to the thresholds before, faith to cross over, more work and trust to walk it out daily with curiosity, enthusiasm, joy.
What we make of it but more importantly what it is making of us.
Many lessons along the way.
What to not do again, what to focus on, what to explore, what to not do at all.
Imperfectly and wonderfully where I belong.
Grateful, awake, unfolding and unfurling.
Still learning, growing, connecting, collaborating, honing, crafting, diversifying, focusing, shaping, creating, making.
Wildflower spinning.

“And so the meaning of our lives is not dependent upon what we make of it but of what he is making of us.”― Emily P. Freeman, A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live

Kindness Blooming

“Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.” – St. Therese of Lisieux

“There is a kindness that dwells deep down in things; it presides everywhere, often in the places we least expect. The world can be harsh and negative, but if we remain generous and patient, kindness inevitably reveals itself. Something deep in the human soul seems to depend on the presence of kindness; something instinctive in us expects it, and once we sense it we are able to trust and open ourselves.” – John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us

To not succumb
To wait with joy
To act with compassion
To rest for the long journey
Right action, right timing, right way
Repetition, consistency, constancy
Kindness, small acts, curiosity
These reside, remain, rise
To not stray, to remain steadfast, to love well
The perennial bloom of kindness.

“Curiosity lights our way to compassion.”― Shannan Martin, Start with Hello

Bright, Fresh Hope

“What we must do,
I suppose,
is to hope the world
keeps its balance;
what we are to do, however,
with our hearts
waiting and watching—truly
I do not know.”— Mary Oliver

“Thick is the darkness–
Sunward, O, sunward!
Rough is the highway–
Onward, still onward!
Dawn harbors surely
East of the shadows.
Facing us somewhere
Spread the sweet meadows.
Upward and forward!
Time will restore us:
Light is above us,
Rest is before us.”
― William Ernest Henley

Time, light, rest.
Onward, forward, upward.
Hope never fails.
Onward, still onward!
And in the struggle.
Entertaining joy, beauty, delight.
Bright, fresh hope.

“Where there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again.”― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

Remember the Light, Be the Light

“No darkness lasts forever. And even there, there are stars.”― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore

“I had forgotten how much light there is in the world, till you gave it back to me.”― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

Kindness given.
Hand extended.
Laughter shared.
Warm embrace.
Listening ear.
Gentle words.
Generous spirit.
Soft heart.
Scatter seeds, cast light.
Again, again, again.
The stars in the night sky.
Steady, certain, true.
Love is action, a choice to be made again, again, again.
Kneaded like bread.
Food for the soul.
Cast light.

“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven