Jun 8
“hope inspires the good to reveal itself.” – Emly Dickinson
“The possible’s slow fuse is lit by the Imagination.”― Emily Dickinson
Yield to presence
Merge with wonder
Submit to joy
Succumb to beauty
Relent in ease
Seed to bloom
Wait with patience
Flow like honey
Comingle with delight
Waltz with peace
Yield to presence
“Write me of hope and love, and hearts that endured.”― Emily Dickinson
“You have gained a new source of enjoyment, and it is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible.”― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
“We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.”
― Jack Gilbert, Refusing Heaven
Risk delight
Play, lighten up, laugh
Have fun
Not platitudes or naïve
Daily practices
Ways to walk in the world
A skip in your step
To not succumb to chaos
Gloom and doom
A counterbalance
Resilience and resistance
Simple, doable, plentiful
Joy spilling into action
Action spilling into joy
Stubbornness to accept gladness
Cast light
“We classify too much and enjoy too little.”― Okakura Kakuzō, The Book of Tea
“Today, seek out one small moment of joy. Just one. Maybe it’s a raindrop on your window, a flower blooming against all odds, an unexpected smile, a hot mug warming your hands.” – Diane Shiffer
“Play is the complete absorption in something that doesn’t matter to the external world, but which matters completely to you. It’s an immersion in your own interests that becomes a feeling in itself, a potent emotion. Play is a disappearance into a space of our choosing, invisible to those outside the game. It is the pursuit of pure flow, a sandbox mind in which we can test new thoughts, new selves. It’s a form of symbolic living, a way to transpose one reality onto another and mine it for meaning. Play is a form of enchantment.”― Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age
One small moment of joy
Perhaps two too
Play, laughter, exploration
Full presence in this day
In the details
A tea bag steeping, full flavor
Mining for meaning
In slivers and slices
Windows open
Fresh air, soft breeze
Enchantment, grace, light
Paint the blank canvas of this day
One slow stroke at a time.
“I don’t want to sit like a brooding hen on the nest of my past achievements. I want to keep on going deep into the uncertain act of making, to see the unknown world stretch out before me and to devote myself to exploring it.”― Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age
as architect of choosing, I choose…
to disrupt the energy of the status quo,
to eclipse the realms of ordinary,
& to live–a life-well lived.
w/ spirit, substance & style.”
― LaShaun Middlebrooks Collier
The People Who Keep Lamps Lit by Jen Shoop
“There are those people who draw light to themselves, and almost can’t help it.
They just stand still and keep the lamps lit.
These are the people who pull out a chair for you when you approach the table: “please,” they say, gesturing you into it, earnest and unaware of their outsized generosity. It is instinctive, their pre-disposition to include.
These are also the people who say “atta girl!” to strangers who have just ridden a big wave, or run the bases, and they fill the hungry heart with pride, and they do it with such ease, and egolessness, having learned some time ago that there is no economy of compliments.
These, too, are the people who say “my pleasure” and mean it, who gamely forebear conversations with the lonely or unhappy, who are practiced in the art of “yes, and–” thinking. They teach us that a rising tide lifts all ships, and that there is enough good in the world to go around, and then some.
What made them this way?
Not the absence of pain, no. More often than not, heartbreak is the holy ground that anoints them.
The more of these light-gatherers I meet, the more I believe it’s will, and will forged anew each day. They wake up and they call forth an adamantine determination to resist the ease of despair, and to believe that reality is mainly possibility — even when the wicked comes knocking.
I would like to learn from them how to draw the luminous, too,
how to stand still and shine,
how to turn on every last light in the city,
flame to flame,
unbound luminescence.”
Light
In all forms
Soak in
Sop up
Take in
Inquire
Observe
Steep
Create
Beauty
Nature
Play
Flowers
Music
Art
Joy
Untethered
Pourous
Light
Luminescence
Fill up
To cast light back out
“The daily routine of most adults is so heavy and artificial that we are closed off to much of the world. We have to do this in order to get our work done. I think one purpose of art is to get us out of those routines. When we hear music or poetry or stories, the world opens up again. We’re drawn in — or out — and the windows of our perception are cleansed, as William Blake said. The same thing can happen when we’re around young children or adults who have unlearned those habits of shutting the world out.” – Ursula K. Le Guin
“to know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing” – Picasso
“Stepping out of a normal routine, finding novelty, being open to serendipity, enjoying the unexpected, embracing a little risk, and finding pleasure in the heightened vividness of life. These are all qualities of a state of play.”― Stuart Brown, Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul
Recess required everyday
Time out and away
Laughter and delight
Play, stir the drink
Feed the soul
Song. Dance. Serendipity.
Make life lively.
“and engage fully with the world… Life without play is a grinding, mechanical existence organized around doing the things necessary for survival. Play is the stick that stirs the drink. It is the basis of all art, games, books, sports, movies, fashion, fun, and wonder—in short, the basis of what we think of as civilization. Play is the vital essence of life. It is what makes life lively.”― Stuart Brown, Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul
“The world will never starve for want of wonders, but for want of wonder.” – G.K. Chesterton
a blessing for when you want to wake up to joy by Kate Bowler
“Blessed are you for feeling the pull,
that tug back toward a part of yourself
so easily ignored.
Yourself at ease.
Yourself in the flow.
Yourself at play.
Pain or boredom or business has sucked up all the energy.
But wait. Aren’t you more than a crisis firefighter?
Blessed are you when you relax.
When you feel young again
When you LAY THE STRESS DOWN.
Blessed are you when you remember
That you used to be pretty good at guitar
Or piano, or actually you’re a terrible singer but, wait for it, you’re going to bring out the showtunes.
Blessed are you who put the words FUN in the calendar
Even when you have no idea what you might actually do.
You are more than a list of things to do, people to love, problems to survive.
You are a big, loud laugh. Or a quiet, study of wonder.
Extroverted or introverted.
Splashy or contained.
May the joy of fun be poured back in your roots,
And may you watch yourself come back to life.”
If but for a moment, maybe 20.
Put it all down.
Time out.
Take a walk.
Have fun.
Quiet study of wonder.
Joy poured back into your roots work.
Nature, kids, dogs, playground, music, poetry, laughter, dance.
In reach, conduits to delight.
Being not doing.
Allowing not pursuing.
Brought back to life.
“A multitude of small delights constitute happiness”― Charles Baudelaire
“Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will.”― Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays
May wonder tug at your sleeve
Interrupt your trance
Awaken your senses
Spark a smile, spilling into laughter
Call you to play
Follow without delay
Multitude of small delights
Present in this very day.
“The present is the only things that has no end.”― Erwin Schrödinger
“This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.”― Alan Watts
“In the name of the air,
The breeze,
And the wind,
May our souls
Stay in rhythm
With eternal
Breath.” – John O’Donohue
Blue skies
Clouds hue
Fields of flowers
Kites soaring
Fresh air
Rich soil
Stay in rhythm
Breathe in beauty
“Your heart is the soil of your life.”― Anita Phillips, The Garden Within
“This morning, the sun endures past dawn. I realise that it is August: the summer’s last stand.”― Sara Baume, A Line Made By Walking
The Pond
“August of another summer, and once again
I am drinking the sun
and the lilies again are spread across the water.
I know now what they want is to touch each other.
I have not been here for many years
during which time I kept living my life.
Like the heron, who can only croak, who wishes he
could sing,
I wish I could sing.
A little thanks from every throat would be appropriate.
This is how it has been, and this is how it is:
All my life I have been able to feel happiness,
except whatever was not happiness,
which I also remember.
Each of us wears a shadow.
But just now it is summer again
and I am watching the lilies bow to each other,
then slide on the wind and the tug of desire,
close, close to one another,
Soon now, I’ll turn and start for home.
And who knows, maybe I’ll be singing.”
― Mary Oliver, Felicity
Time slows when we do
Immersion, presence, attention
This place and space of now
Soak in the rest of summer, third act
Fruits of harvest to follow
A little thanks, maybe more.
“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”― John Lubbock, The Use Of Life
“As all mountains stand on the ground,
As all trees root in the soil,
As all rivers flow to the sea,
there’s a substance under all life
that joins us and holds us up.” – Mark Nepo
“When learning how to swim, we feel that we’re sinking, and yet we don’t. In just this way, there’s something that holds us up, a mystical buoyancy under all our problems. Of course, a stone will sink and a heart turned to stone will keep dropping. But not all things sink. So our job is to stay light enough to stay afloat, and to trust amid the turbulence that there’s some element of being that will sustain us, if we surrender to it. This buoyancy of existence doesn’t eliminate the turbulence of the surface where we have to live. But as the air that makes up the sky also fills our lungs, what holds us up is around us and within us. It lifts us when we least expect it, with a wave of being that will carry us, when we’re still enough to receive it. Yet living on the surface, we never know what will round our edges or touch us in a way that will stop our chatter. It might be when our eyes meet at the farmers market in the bright sun. Or after a movie in the night parking lot when we realize that we’ve been looking at the same star. Like roots growing a mile apart in the stream, we’re touched by the same current of life, though we may never know each other. Despite our complaints, the friction of the world slows us down till we receive everything. Though we often feel alone, we’re never alone. And when we feel a sense of being held, we’re coming alive. This is where we’re really going, into the embrace of where we are.” – Mark Nepo, Things That Join the Sea and the Sky
Put down your don’ts
Your shoulds
Your musts
Your have tos
Your can’ts
Your rules
Open and embrace
Dive beneath the surface
Better yet, cannonball
Free falling into fun, frolic, delight
Ease of being
Receive everything
Hidden in right in front of you
Woven into the fabric of this day.
“Life offers its wisdom generously. Everything teaches. Not everyone learns.”― Rachel Naomi Remen
