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Posts tagged ‘Peace’

Sep 5

Unencumbered and Bright

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

To being yourself
Loud and soft
Authentic, brilliant, imperfect
To allow others the same grace
New day, clean slate
Useful, honorable, compassionate
Unencumbered and bright
Blooming in all seasons.

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sep 3

Holding Flowers

“In English we say ‘I’m tired.’ But in poetry we say I’ve been holding up entire skies with hands that were only ever meant to hold flowers.” – Sophia Bray

“Rest:
as beautiful and necessary a task as any.
How else can we remember to breathe?
to think?
to shut out the world?
to not think?
to regain the strength
to take on the world?
to take in the world
with all our senses?
to dream?”― Shellen Lubin

Endings and beginnings.
Holding hands.
Walking each other home.
Until one takes the lead.
As the other fades, falls behind, rests from work well done.
Sure to come again.
In due time and timing.
Entering familiar spaces with fresh eyes, new hope.
Holding flowers in all seasons.
Skies meant for gazing, not holding.

“Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.
Bid the last fruits to be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to ripeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

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 30

Wabi

“We exist with a wind whispering inside and our moon flexing. Amid the ducts, inside the basilica of bones.”― Jack Gilbert

“Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods. Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt. But there’s music in us. Hope is pushed down but the angel flies up again taking us with her.”― Jack Gilbert, Collected Poems

Notes falling into music.
Basilicas rising.
Valiant blossoming.
Fruition to flourishing to folding.
New bloom awaits its turn.
Breaking through fertile soil.
Hope ascends.

“The Japanese think it strange we paint our old wooden houses when it takes so long to find the wabi in them. They prefer the bonsai tree after the valiant blossoming is over, the leaves fallen. When bareness reveals a merit born in the vegetable struggling.”― Jack Gilbert, Collected Poems

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 21

Altars and Cathedrals of Presence

“Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.”― Alain de Botton

“Awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.
Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.
Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon.
Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to follow its path.
Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame.
May anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.
Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
Be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.” – John O’Donohue

Presence and attention.
Gratitude and grace.
Reverence and awe.
On the sacred ground, holy places, cathedrals and altars of this day.

“When there is nothing left to lose, we find the true self—the self that is whole, the self that is enough, the self that no longer looks to others for definition, or completion, or anything but companionship on the journey.”― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

Aug 20

Art of Harvesting the Day

“We seldom notice how each day is a holy place Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens, Transforming our broken fragments Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“Perhaps the art of harvesting the secret riches of our lives is best achieved when we place profound trust in the act of beginning. Risk might be our greatest ally. To live a truly creative life, we always need to cast a critical look at where we presently are, attempting always to discern where we have become stagnant and where new beginning might be ripening. There can be no growth if we do not remain open and vulnerable to what is new and different. I have never seen anyone take a risk for growth that was not rewarded a thousand times over.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Blessings abundant
Color and light
Beauty woven brilliantly in presence
For eyes to notice
Hands wide open
Heart porous
Art of harvesting it all.

“As clay anchors a tree in light and wind, May your outer life grow from peace within.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Aug 18

Blooming Goodness

“How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change. And how ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us blossom into who we were meant to be.”― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

“It wasn’t ’til I saw my daddy’s name in stone, I knew
It ain’t a question of if they will
It’s how they remember you

Did you stand or did you fall?
Build a bridge or build a wall
Hide your love or give it all
What did you do?

Did you make ’em laugh or make ’em cry?
Did you quit or did you try?
Live your dreams or let ’em die
What did you choose?
When it all comes down
It ain’t if, it’s how they remember you

When you’re down to your last dollar
Will you give or will you take?
When the stiff wind blows the hardest
Will you bend or will you break?” – Rascal Flatts

Fall, get back up. Begin again, and again.
Bridges, not walls.
Laughter, lots of it.
Quit then start over, keep going.
Give generously.
Bending and breaking open.
Do good.
Love well.
Cast light.

“What will matter is the good we did, not the good we expected others to do.”― 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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