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Posts tagged ‘Reflection’

Feb 6

Soft Days

“Be still. Stillness reveals the secrets of eternity”― Lao Tzu

“Soft days are not wasted days. They are how you remember your breath. Your worth was never tied to your pace.”― Ajmal, The Border of a Mind

Space, margin, blank canvas
Slow pace, no pace
Stillness to clarity, discovery
Rest spilling into restoration
Soft days, creative womb.

“Space and silence are two aspects of the same thing. The same no-thing. They are externalization of inner space and inner silence, which is stillness: the infinitely creative womb of all existence.”― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Feb 2

Ask, Listen, Pay Attention

“Zen pretty much comes down to three things — everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.”― Jane Hirshfield

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” – Zora Neale Hurston

Living the answers with grace and gratitude
Allowing more questions without knowing the answers
In thin spaces, quiet places, gentle throughways
Releasing the grip of control and knowing
Inviting and allowing
Sacred, holy ground of
Curiosity, inquiry, nuance, noticing, imagination, connection, laughter, gratitude, joy
Rooted in trust, fidelity, love
Different seasons
Each with its own gifts to bear
Opening the gifts
Of presence, awe, wonder, planting, abiding, slowing, savoring
No rushing to get to the other side, in a hurry or to be first
Alignment, attunement, rooting, rising
The work of eternal blooming.

“The most sublime act is to set another before you.”― William Blake, Proverbs of Hell

Feb 1

2 Comments

Fresh Coat, New Day

“He who kisses joy as it flies by will live in eternity’s sunrise.”― William Blake

APACHE Blessing

“May the sun bring you new energy by day,
May the moon softly restore you by night,
May the rain wash away your worries,
May the breeze blow new strength into your being,
May you walk gently through the world and know its beauty all the days of your life.

Scratch the surface of her joy,
And you will find a well of sorrow.
Dive into the well,
And discover her spring of hope.
Follow that spring to the river of her strength,
Compassion, and faith . . .
And you will have touched her soul.” – Terri St Cloud

Fresh coat of snow this morning
Brightening and refreshing the landscape
New day, new month, new start
Brilliant white, bold colors
Wakeup call
Invitation to seeing the same in different ways
Beneath the surface
Into a wellspring
Make space for joy today.

“And we are put on this earth a little space that we might learn to bear the beams of love.”― William Blake

Jan 29

Bewilderment and Beauty

“Holy unanticipated occurrences!”― Kate DiCamillo, Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

“Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice.”― E.M. Forster, A Room With A View

Detachment and distancing
Emergence and embrace
Deepening and weaving
Leaning in and leaning back
Grief and grace
Color and hue
Gratitude and gravity
Reverence and awe
Metaphor and paradox
Dance of poetry
Beauty in motion.

“Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.”― W.H. Auden, New Year Letter

Jan 18

At Any Time, All the Time, Light

“I don’t believe there is one great thing I was made to do in this world. I believe there is one great God I was made to glorify. And there will be many ways, even a million little ways, I will declare his glory with my life.”― Emily P. Freeman, A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live

“At any time you can ask yourself:
At which threshold am I now standing?
At this time in my life, what am I leaving?
Where am I about to enter?
What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold?
What gift would enable me to do it?
A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms, and atmospheres.
Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up.
At this threshold a great complexity of emotion comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossings were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds: to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward.
The time has come to cross.” – John O’Donohue

Varieties of presence
Close up
Far away
Big
Small
Busy, over busy, distractions
Mostly in-between, a mix and muddle
Where sweetness lies, right next to grief, beside gratitude
Cloaked in grace, awe, wonder
For the taking and receiving
If we choose
Someday is now
Ordinary days
Steps leading to thresholds
Rarely aware walking it out
Slowly then suddenly
Breathe, witness, partake
Wherever you are on this leg of the journey
Slow, pause, stop
Look up and around
Beauty, light, hope, love
On the ground you stand
This very day.

“Poetry is life distilled.”― Gwendolyn Brooks

Jan 15

Higher, Deeper, Peace

“Don’t just do something, sit there.” – Sharon Salzberg

“Think higher, feel deeper.”― Elie Wiesel

Take a break
Hard stop
Pullover
Often
Away from noise
Distractions
Confetti attention
Opinions
Assumptions
Knowing
Control
Out of the weeds
Reflection
Higher, deeper, inquiry
You can’t outrun you
Sit with love, kindness, compassion
The start and finish line of peace is within
Spilling into the world in between
Cast light

“Let yourself go. Pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them.”― E.M. Forster, A Room with a View

Jan 5

To Be Wild

“I no longer want more. I want to be wild.” – Emma Tynan

“May you find the singular pathway within—the one that leads you back to the places that never asked you to strive.

And when the world asks you to chase, when it tells you that “more” is the answer, may you remember there is another way. A way to root deeply. A way to belong to yourself. A way to listen for the answers buried in the clay of your own heart.

May you come to know yourself in all the wild places, and may they guide you home.” – Emma Tynan

Slow entry
Soft step
Senses atune
Rooted and reaching
Anchored and in flight
Deeper, mattering, emergence
Clay of your own heart
Whisper of soul
Listen, explore the wilderness within
Welcome home.

“This wildness is not “more.” It’s not another ladder, another stretch, another version of self-betterment. It’s remembered. It’s a movement toward what remembers you: ancestry, instinct, soul, native language, the wisdom carried quietly in your bones.

Wildness doesn’t ask for performance or destruction. It invites you deeper, beneath the polished edges and the well-rehearsed roles, into the place where your truest nature lives. It asks you to let yourself be held by the places your soul recognizes. It is the feeling of being met by a landscape and knowing, in some wordless way, that you are not separate from it.” – Emma Tynan

Dec 2

Whispered Hope

“I know life is not rainbows and butterflies, but I’d rather die delusional than being a mature cynic.”― Abhaidev, That Thing About You

“Heaven and earth, the Celtic saying goes, are only three feet apart, but in thin places that distance is even shorter. They are places that make us feel something larger than ourselves, as though we are held in a place between worlds, beyond experience.”― Kerri ní Dochartaigh, Thin Places

Thin spaces
Beauty, color, light
Quiet and reflection
Pause and gratefulness
In the midst of this ordinary day
Holding room for butterflies, whispered hope.

“To stand together under a sky – that no matter how grey and uncertain – still holds room for butterflies, moths, dragonflies and things we once were too fearful to name; things like whispered hope.”― Kerri ní Dochartaigh, Thin Places

 

Nov 30

Elected Silence

“Life is so urgent it necessitates living slow.”― Ann Voskamp

“ELECTED Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.”
― Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems and Prose

In slowness, depth, breadth, width
Soften, yield, open
In quietness, rhythm, flow, music
Stillness, witness, wonder
In reflection, gratitude, grace, awe
Center, root, anchor
Sacred ground, sit and stay awhile.

“The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before… So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running.” —Jan L. Richardson

Nov 17

New Day, Small Shifts

“Hoping to live days of greater happiness, I forget that days of less happiness are passing by.”― Elizabeth Bishop

“Who would you be if nobody told you who you were?” – Wayne Dyer

Comparison and counting
Speed and production
Someday when
I “should” do this or that
What will they think?
Own your life, one day at a time
Small shifts
Direct your time, attention, awareness, energy
Do something different
Get out of your own way
Inquiry and reflection
Awe and wonder
Kindness and love
Gratitude and forgiveness
Laughter and fun
Let go to take hold of joy, contentment, delight
New day, fresh air, deep breath.

“Should is an asshole.”― Jennifer Pastiloff, On Being Human

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