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Posts tagged ‘Reflection’

Oct 13

Gravity of Spirit

“There is a gravity of spirit that pulls the essence of who we are into being. Our job, like all our sister creatures, is to find the abundance of air and water and light, and to unfold what is already within us.”― Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

“Living is a conversation with no end, a dance with no steps, a song with no words, a reason too big for any mind.”― Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Keep your conversation with life going
Ask, listen, explore
Release, embrace, pursue
In the struggle, routine and rush
Pause, pay attention, notice
Gravity of spirit invites, draws forward
Different paths
Same journey home
To light, unfolding, becoming.

“To be running breathlessly, but not yet arrived, is itself delightful, a suspended moment of living hope.”― Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet

Sep 30

Deep Dive, Surface Anew

“A great ship asks deep water.”― George Herbert

“By all means use sometimes to be alone.
Salute thyself: see what thy soul doth wear.
Dare to look in thy chest; for ’tis thine own:
And tumble up and down what thou find’st there.
Who cannot rest till he good fellows find,
He breaks up house, turns out of doors his mind.”
― George Herbert, The Temple: The Poetry of George Herbert

Within
Inquiry and revelation
Deep waters
Surety of tide
Rhythm and rhyme
Surface anew, bouy
In and out
Like breath
Close up and pull back
Ground to horizon
Shift in view
Give and receive
Conductor of this day
What will you compose?

“Peace, prattler.”― George Herbert

Sep 27

Harvest Hues

“As long as autumn lasts, I shall not have hands, canvas and colours enough to paint the beautiful things I see.” – Vincent Van Gogh

“He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.” – Horace

Colors shifting, softening, glowing
Jewel tones
Depth, hues, nuance
Harvest time
Partake in the feast
Slow pace
Easy cadence
Light step
Beauty woven in each day, season
Hour of living, today.
Discover the gold in your pocket.

“Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.” – Jim Bishop

 

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 17

The Great Silence, Soft Voice

“Whatever is happening, whatever is changing, whatever is going or not going according to my plans—I release my hold on all of it. I leave behind who I think I am, who I want to be, what I want the world to be. I come home to the great peace of the present moment,”― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

“May you listen to the voice within the beat even when you are tired. When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead. May every experience in life be a door that opens your heart, expands your understanding, and leads you to freedom. If you are weary, may you be aroused by passion and purpose. If you are blameful and bitter, may you be sweetened by hope and humor. If you are frightened, may you be emboldened by a big consciousness far wiser than your fear. If you are lonely, may you find love, may you find friendship. If you are lost, may you understand that we are all lost, and still we are guided—by Strange Angels and Sleeping Giants, by our better and kinder natures, by the vibrant voice within the beat. May you follow that voice, for This is the way—the hero’s journey, the life worth living, the reason we are here.  ”― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

Senses awakening
Slow over urgency
Soft over hard
Reflection over judgment
Yield over assumption
Praise over complaint
Pause over pass by
Sauntering over speed
Presence over past
Thriving over striving
Peace, praise, delight
Receive and cast light.

“Everything gets sorted out in the Great Silence.”― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

Aug 15

Sweet Honey of Grace

“…when you are convinced that all the exits are blocked, either you take to believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird. The miracle is that the honey is always there, right under your nose, only you were too busy searching elsewhere to realize it. The worst is not death but being blind, blind to the fact that everything about life is in the nature of the miraculous.”― Henry Miller

“Each person is born with an unencumbered spot, free of expectation and regret, free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry; an umbilical spot of grace where we were each first touched by God. It is this spot of grace that issues peace.

To know this spot of Inwardness is to know who we are, not by surface markers of identity, not by where we work or what we wear or how we like to be addressed, but by feeling our place in relation to the Infinite and by inhabiting it. This is a hard lifelong task, for the nature of becoming is a constant filming over of where we begin, while the nature of being is a constant erosion of what is not essential. Each of us lives in the midst of this ongoing tension, growing tarnished or covered over, only to be worn back to that incorruptible spot of grace at our core.

When the film is worn through, we have moments of enlightenment, moments of wholeness, moments of Satori as the Zen sages term it, moments of clear living when inner meets outer, moments of full integrity of being, moments of complete Oneness. And whether the film is a veil of culture, of memory, of mental or religious training, of trauma or sophistication, the removal of that film and the restoration of that timeless spot of grace is the goal of all therapy and education.

Regardless of subject matter, this is the only thing worth teaching: how to uncover that original center and how to live there once it is restored. We call the filming over a deadening of heart, and the process of return, whether brought about through suffering or love, is how we unlearn our way back to God”― Mark Nepo, Unlearning Back to God: Essays on Inwardness, 1985-2005

Unlearning
Unencumbered
Becoming
Sweet honey of grace
Of awe, wonder, reverence
Presence and knowing
In the unknowing.

“I was operating on the unspoken assumption that my inner world would be filled with life, peace, and joy once my external world was perfect.”― John Ortberg, Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You

Aug 5

Today Such a Day

“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.”― Rumi

“Only from the heart can you touch the sky.”― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

Curiosity, inquiry, observation.
Reverence, reverie, reflection.
Open hands, heart, eyes.
Breeze, sky, beauty.
Notice and partake.

“On a day
when the wind is perfect,
the sail just needs to open and the world is full of beauty.
Today is such a day.”― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

Jun 24

Radiating Peace

“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.”― Jelaluddin Rumi , The Essential Rumi

“A balanced inner calmness radiates from a peaceful centre. It neither craves others’ approval nor rejects others’ presence. It neither pulls towards nor pushes away. It has a reverent attitude towards life and all its inhabitants.”― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

Water
Stillness
Flow
Buoyancy
Waves
Rhythm
Tides
Contracting and expanding
Deep breath in
Full breath out
Deep presence
Fullness of attention
Radiating peace.

“This is the messiness of life – that we all carry multitudes, so must sit with the shifts. We are complicated creatures, and ultimately, the balance comes from this understanding. Be water. Flowing, flexible and soft. Subtly powerful and open. Wild and serene. Able to accept all changes, yet still led by the pull of steady tides. It is enough.”― Victoria Erickson

Jun 11

In Stillness, Sanctuary

“A walk in nature walks the soul back home.”― Mary Davis, Every Day Spirit: A Daybook of Wisdom, Joy and Peace

“In a silent morning moment, with a silent voice I pray, to lift a silent sunrise offering on silent wings of grace.”― Mary Davis, Every Day Spirit: A Daybook of Wisdom, Joy and Peace

Tending rather than mere attendance
Showing up
Leaning in
To what matters
Leaning back
Foregoing worry
Picking up joy, curiosity, delight
Traveling light, casting light.

“Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary.” – Hermann Hesse

Jun 7

In Stillness, Revelation and Delight

“Stillness reveals what hurry hides.” – Pico Iyer

“Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it.”― Emily Dickinson

In stillness, revelation
In hovering, awe
In abiding, emergence
Soft whisper
Deep stirring
Exquisite beauty
Peace that passes understanding
On the altars of this day
Kneel
Become new, again and again.

“We turn not older with years but newer every day.”― Emily Dickinson

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