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Posts tagged ‘play’

Jul 13

Embrace of Presence

“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

Apr 24

Silky Attention

“Poetry’s work is the clarification and magnification of being.”― Jane Hirshfield

“Much of beauty, both in art and in life, is a balancing of the lines of forward-flowing desire with those of resistance — a gnarled tree, the flow of a statue’s draped cloth. Through such tensions, physical or mental, the world in which we exist becomes itself. Great art, we might say, is thought that has been concentrated in just this way: honed and shaped by a silky attention brought to bear on the recalcitrant matter of earth and of life. We seek in art the elusive intensity by which it knows.”― Jane Hirschfield

Connection
Meshing
Weaving
Binding
Unraveling
Putting down
Picking up
Bypassing
The dance of being
The song of the day
The poetry of clarity
Silky attention to see beauty in all
Magnified.

“Do not follow the ancient masters, seek what they sought.”― Jane Hirshfield, The Heart of Haiku

Mar 13

Bear Fruit, Cast Light

“That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality–your soul, if you will–is as bright and shining as any that has ever been….Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place. Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.”― George Saunders

“Leisure is only possible when we are at one with ourselves. We tend to overwork as a means of self-escape, as a way of trying to justify our existence.”― Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture

Space, margins, pause, reflection
Anchors, roots, foundations
Luminosity within
Home
Take the journey daily
Bear fruit, cast light

“Leisure, it must be remembered, is not a Sunday afternoon idyll, but the preserve of freedom, of education and culture, and of that undiminished humanity which views the world as a whole.”― Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture

Jan 12

1 Comment

Play Date

“Creativity is always a leap of faith. You’re faced with a blank page, blank easel, or an empty stage.” – Julia Cameron

“Everything that’s created comes out of silence. Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your words come out of this void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness.” – Wayne Dyer

Play date.
A few hours painting pottery.
Choosing the piece.
The colors.
The pattern.
Trying something new.
No expectations, formulas, rules.
No score, measurement, counting, comparing, producing.
No checklists or transactions.
Entering flow.
Time suspended.
Exploration.
Allowing.
Simple acts of getting out of your head.
Into your heart.
Slowing to the fullness of time.
Creating, emergence, stillness.
The gift of play to renew and refresh.
May we be wise enough as children to weave into each day.

“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.” – Charles Mingus

May 27

Necessity of Play

“Do anything, but let it produce joy.” – Walt Whitman

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” – Albert Einstein

Summer kick-off.
Threshold to slowing, savoring.
Weave play into each day.
Skip. Hop. Slide.
Simple joy producing activities to reset and reframe.
To be made new.
Destination imagination.
Fresh paths to be cut.
Enjoy this day.
Eyes of a child, at any age.

“The only thing that ultimately matters is to eat an ice-cream cone, play a slide trombone, plant a small tree, good God, now you’re free.” – Ray Manzarek

Mar 13

A Child’s Delight

“A happy face is one of the most apparent indicators of pure delight.”― Santosh Kalwar

“First. think
Second. believe
Third. dream
Fourth. dare”― Walt Disney

Discovery through a child’s eyes is double delight.
Witnessing joy and awe.
Being invited in to discover the world as if for the first time.
May you find wonder in this day.
As if you have never been here before.
Because you have not.

“The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.”― Isaac Asimov

Mar 3

Dig In, Delight

“The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.”― Isaac Asimov

“Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.”― W. Somerset Maugham

Delight. Delight. Delight.
Emphasis. Steadfast. Keen.
Found in play, lightness.
Hidden in the bucket of ordinary days.
In finding out, discovery, unfolding.
Sacred, holy ground of frolic and fun.
Seed. Root. Bloom.

“Happiness isn’t reserved for privileged individuals. It is a state of mind that can neither be bought nor stolen nor traded; it is a liberty available to anyone.”― Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway

“The dog is the god of frolic.” – Henry Ward Beecher

Dec 30

1 Comment

Playground of Joy

“Joy is prayer; joy is strength: joy is love; joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.” – Mother Teresa

“The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” – Christopher McCandless

Blue skies.
Sun-filled day.
40s in December
To the playground.
Of course, to the swings.
Anchored and in flight.
Looking up in delight.
The utility and necessity of joy.
Carry it forward into each day.
Sun or clouds.
A vibrancy, enthusiasm, wonder at play.

“Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” – Karl Barth

Oct 24

Into Peace

“One must learn an inner solitude, wherever one may be.”― Meister Eckhart

“freedom is happening every moment when we are not craving something more.”― Yung Pueblo, Inward

Color outside the lines.
No rules.
Uninhibited.
Free of rules or instructions.
Just expression.
Create.
Whatever comes in the moment.
Allowing joy in by getting out of the way.
Open the door.
Play, delight, savor.
Right where you are, right now.
No place to be but here, in this moment.

“Run into peace.”― Meister Eckhart

Jul 6

Levity

“Nothing like a little judicious levity.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

“The body, she says, is subject to the force of gravity. But the soul is ruled by levity, pure.”― Saul Bellow

Weight and levity.
Gravity and flight.
Ground and sky.
Both and all the in between.
Awe and wonder.
Play and laughter.
Lighten up.
Ignite your imagination.
Illuminate this day.
Let joy in.

“Joy is prayer; joy is strength: joy is love; joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.” – Mother Teresa

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